Big Chicago

Big Chicago Part 17...by Samayel


Naturally enough, considering what they do for a living, not one of them got drunk. Only me. I discreetly numbed myself up really well, because unlike the rest of them, I know what’s coming. Harry isn’t red-faced or strutting around all pissed, but I can feel it under the surface. A stiffness. A forced kind of calm. Inside, he’s angry, and it makes my stomach knot up to even think of it.

Seven years. I’m pretty well conditioned to cringe and beg forgiveness or offer sex to buy my way out of a beating. Can I even describe how sickening it is to feel that urge cresting near Harry? There are people here. I can’t drop to my knees and fumble with his fly or drop my slacks and roll over here. My conditioning doesn’t mean shit anymore. This is different. Harry isn’t my trick, and he isn’t my owner. He’s my lover, and I don’t know what to do to make this better. When the last of them leaves, I have to face him…alone. I want to sneak away and curl in a ball until it’s over, but I can’t.

They’re getting up one by one, crowing over victory or moaning over losses, picking up chips and glasses and the like while they get ready to make for the door. I play the good host, and gather up things to take to the kitchen, since Maria and Therese went to bed hours ago. I can tell by the ice glinting in Harry’s eyes and the set of his jaw that he’s sending me a mental message. ‘We need to talk…soon.’

I scurry off to the kitchen after making nervous goodbyes to Dean, Parvati, Hermione and Ron along the way. The others don’t really know me that well…yet…but Ron gives me an odd look. He wonders if I’m alright. Hah. Am I alright? I’m about five seconds from a panic attack and I’m tipsier than all of them together. I wave him off with a smirk and wish him goodnight, and he heads for the exit with the rest of them.

I’m alone in here. Also drunk. My head is spinning and I’m sweating like a whore in church. How fitting. Harry is going to come in here…what…what will he do? I don’t know! It never mattered before! My stomach hurts. Who cares if someone that means nothing to you is angry? That’s what makes this different. Harry means everything! Bruises heal…bad memories fade…but not Harry. It matters now. I don’t want this. I’ll take it all back. I’ll do anything he wants if he just doesn’t hurt me…or worse…hate me!

Serves me right. Drunk and stupid and mouthy. My legs aren’t working right. I just dropped like a puppet with the strings cut. It’s hard to breathe and I can feel my gorge rising. All I can see clearly are the clean tiles of the kitchen floor. Panic and booze and nerves and bile is coming up. Jesus, I hate puking. Of course, I always cry when I vomit, mostly because I never vomit unless I’m violently ill and miserable, or very drunk. Not the best conditions for restrained emotions.

The tiny sober part of me in the back of my brain thinks: ‘How pathetic.’ This is how he finds me. On my hands and knees, spitting up bile and vodka on the kitchen floor, red-faced, weeping and shivering from head to toe. When I see his feet on the tiles in front me, all I can do is start babbling pleas for forgiveness and botched apologies. I’m disgusted even with myself, and that makes me cry even more.

“Holy fucking shit! Are you alright? What’s wrong? Let me get some towels. You need a doctor? Are you sick? Or was it just the drinks? Shit! Fuck. Hold on. Here!”

Towels are mopping up the mess I made on the tile, and a wet cloth is on my head. He hands a few paper towels and glass of water to me. I’m shuddering so badly I keep spilling parts of it, but it gets some of the bile out of my mouth. I keep sucking in panic breaths and trying to mop my face clean. He’s so good about it all, and I can’t even make myself feel better.

“’m’sorry. M’sorry! Don’t…don’ be angry with me! Please! Harry I’m sorry!” The words spill out before I can compose myself, stumbling over each other like cheap drunks.

“God damn! I’m not THAT upset! You should have told me before dropping something like that on everyone. Okay? God! You made yourself sick over this? That cuts it. We’re seeing Doc Snape tomorrow. Can you get up? Don’t worry about me…worry about you. We’re just gonna get you to bed and I’ll get some aspirin, alright? Do you…do you want a shower…or a bath?”

I keep trying to stand, but my legs won’t do anything right. I try hands and knees, but that isn’t really working so well either. I can’t see straight through tears and puffy eyes, and my nose is so clogged that I can’t get a decent breath. I’m more than conscious enough to realize it when he picks me up and starts to carry me.

It feels good. Even like this. Even as bad as I feel right now, it feels good. He doesn’t hate me. He’s not really angry. He won’t hit me. Not my Harry. He wouldn’t do that. He keeps shushing me when I try to babble things. Some of them might have made sense. I don’t know. I know he kissed my head, which is flopped against his shoulder.

“Let’s just get the clothes off of you and then see what you’d like after. I can get the pajamas, or draw a bath…anything you like. We can talk later, okay? I’m not gonna yell or anything like that. You just surprised me. That’s all. I was afraid this was too much for you. I think I was right. Too much, too fast. I’ve still got some time off, and we’ll see Doc Snape tomorrow, and then just relax or shop or dine out. Sound good?”

“Mm-hm.” Stupid sniffles. I feel like a complete idiot. I get deposited onto the bed…softly, and he’s pulling at the laces on my good shoes. All I can think of clearly is a vague hope that I didn’t puke on them. Bile is hell on good leather. So humiliated. Drunk. Had a panic attack because I shot my mouth off after a couple of cocktails and Harry was only irritated over it after all.

It’s just…everything was so serious, and so real, and it’s all so much bigger than me. I wanted to feel like I knew what I was doing…but I don’t. Harry’s talking and I lost track. I think I just agreed to a bath. Water’s running in the bathroom and he just left to clean up the kitchen and bring water and aspirin.

I can breathe a little better. Enough to sit up, but it helps if I lay my head against the bedpost. Peel off socks and slacks. Ditch the nice shirt. Ugh. There are tears and snot and a little puke near the collar. Not really ready for walking just yet.

Harry brought water and the rest. I gulp the aspirin down. I do love cold, clean filtered water…the kind I haven’t had in years. No more disgusting iron and sulfur tainted, over-chlorinated crap for me. I’m not a stupid, ignorant, filthy prison bitch. I’m not. If I just keep saying it I can make it true. It has to be true.

“Okay then…you ready for the bath, love? Need a hand?”

My legs aren’t entirely steady, but I’m coherent enough to get a few words out while he lets me lean on him for support.

“I’m sorry…Harry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. Don’t even think like that. You got way too worked up over this. Don’t know what the hell I was thinking. This was too much at once. You need some time to decompress. Just…trust me. No harm done.”

“Okay.“ That’s about all I can handle saying at the moment. I don’t really want to touch off another crying jag, and I feel dangerously close to it still. The bath is only medium warm, meant to soothe rather than clean, and it looks and smells like he poured in sea salts and a few other things to scent the bath nicely. It does smell relaxing in here. Invigorating.

I slide out of my shorts and into my bath, and it really does feel good. Next thing I know, wonderfully adept hands are massaging my back and shoulders and neck. Maybe not as skillful as a masseuse, but still utterly wonderful. I lay my head back against his chest and just whimper a little when he hits the sorest spots.

“I’m so pathetic. I can’t…I can’t believe I fell apart like that. I really am so-”

“Shhh. None of that. You know what’s amazing? How adorable you are even when you’re a mess. That’s amazing. You feel like talking about it now?”

I sigh. With hands working on me I genuinely feel safe. He wouldn’t hit me. I’m not in the kind of trouble I used to get into. The instincts of a lifetime don’t mean shit and Harry is the finest man I have ever even heard of. I can talk.

“I had…too much to drink. I was just…really, really tense. All day…not just tonight. I saw the news, Harry. I know what it’s like out there. What’s been going on. I get…I get scared.”

He chuckled. I love that sound. It’s a safe sound. A happy Harry is good.

“I forget sometimes what it must be like to have a life different than mine. First it was training and war zones, then it was this. After sleeping in a tent while mortars go off and laying down covering fire while pulling wounded guys out of some hellhole, everything seems pretty blasé to me. It’s okay to be a little scared, but obviously you weren’t so frightened that you wouldn’t volunteer to throw yourself into the mix.”

It sounds so childish now. “Harry…I don’t…I can’t stand the idea of getting you into something…something I caused…and making trouble for you that you don’t need. I know…there are things we can’t say, but…it…God! It’s hell out there! When I think of what could happen! I just…I don’t want to make another mess that you have to clean up. You have enough on your plate, and I’m just this worthless lump that shops and eats and warms the bed…an-”

“Hold up! I wasn’t pissed at all before, but I am now!” The hand just stopped rubbing and I can feel the hair on my neck rise in apprehension.

“”Don’t you ever…ever fucking say something like that again! How can you even think that?! We’ve only just started…and the only thing that makes this place is alive to me is having you in it. I used to stay away from here because it was so empty. Just take off for a week or so and try not to remember that my life was empty except for my work. I smile when I think of coming here now. You think that isn’t important? And…we have time. Find what you want to do…and do it! It’s only been a few weeks! Less if you just count the time you’ve been here.

I don’t give a flying fuck about what you were or where you’ve been or anything you felt you had to do along the way! None of that means shit to me! All I know is I’m crazy about Drake here and now. So forgive me if I take fucking exception to the idea that you’re some kind of whore! I would never have a whore in my home…or in my bed…or anywhere else for that matter! So drop that thought and leave it behind or I’ll…I swear I’ll…”

He’s red faced with indignation! He means every word of that! I haven’t got any business blushing over something like this. It feels good. To have someone who fights your insecurities, like a knight errant, tilting at your own private windmills.

“Or you’ll what?” I can’t help but tease a little. A little happiness is bubbling up inside of me, and some of it just has to come out. “Would you punish me? If I was naughty?

“I’ll…I’ll hold out on sex! That’s what!”

“What! You wouldn’t! You couldn’t! I wouldn’t let you! You couldn’t last two hours with me in the room…if I wanted to make you have sex with me!”

“Think so, huh? Well it’s safer to just make sure you have to test that! Do us both a favor and don’t make me prove you wrong. Don’t ever talk about yourself that way where I can hear you…alright?”

I’m so giddy. Almost high. His words feel that good to me. I’m so insecure…so pathetically in need of approval. Logically I know this, and I can look at myself with honesty and know this to be true, but I can’t change it easily. I still feel my heart skip a beat when he makes it clear that he cares and reminds me that I matter. Even when I’ve done something that may not have pleased him, he’s so patient and good and worried about me. Me!

“Okay. No more talk like that. I promise. Some things aren’t worth risking. Especially sex with you.”

I flop my head back into his shoulder and just soak in the bath, enjoying his closeness and trying to push aside the ugly memories of my little collapse this evening. We’ll see Doctor Snape tomorrow, and he’ll probably give me some kind of tranquilizer for my anxiety, just like the people in all those commercials I hate. I feel stupid and ashamed, but Harry may be right. I didn’t handle this well, or I wouldn’t have wound up on the floor of the kitchen puking my guts out after drinking too much. God help me…I don’t want to become my mother! We’ll see how it goes. At least we can have a look at my scar and find out how long until he can remove it.

Harry rubs away the last of my stress…working the knots out of my shoulders and neck until I don’t whimper anymore. To my shame, despite my performance tonight, and my rather frayed nerves, I’m finding myself feeling very kittenish and horny all of a sudden. Being cared for and handled gently and attended to so well makes me suddenly feel empty for the want of him in me. I slip a hand back and take his hand in mine.

Kissing that hand is a pleasure all its own. It gives me a chance to really appreciate it. Strong and dark compared to mine, with heavy calluses and a little downy fur near the wrist. I kiss the center of his palm, and part with just the softest brush of tongue.

He takes the cue and kisses the back of my neck softly, finding his way up to just behind and under my ear. How does he know that it’s a place that induces instant submission and desire on my part? Instinct? If so, then his instincts are incredible. The faint, fluttering whisper of need I felt a minute ago becomes a cyclone in a matter of seconds, while capable lips work their way along soft flesh.

The bath gets left to drain, and I am treated like royalty, patted dry with thick towels while being teased in so many little ways. He just likes seeing me naked. I think he likes it even better when he’s clothed and I’m not. I wonder, for a moment, if my lover actually has a kink for that, and then he makes me forget everything else when his mouth surrounds my cock.

He is a deliberate tease, refusing me the chance to come hard and fast into a mouth that pleases so very well. To think that I used to feel uncomfortable about receiving oral sex! Ridiculous now. I think it might have been that I always thought of sucking a cock as a form of control. It always was for me. A man with his cock in my mouth answers to me and me alone. I never wanted to give power over me to anyone. I’m not big or strong or deadly the way Harry is, but I always had my own way to control others, and now, for Harry, I don’t care if I lose control and answer to another’s skill.

He’s been paying attention. I laugh a little and run my hands through his hair, because I recognize little things that he didn’t do before. He learned them from me. The careful flick and swab of a tongue that has no intention of bringing orgasm quickly. The hand that is firm and cautious, never giving too much pleasure, almost distracting you from the soft suction of lips and the warmth of a lover’s mouth. These are my greatest arts, and he’s using them for my benefit.

We make our way back to the bed, and I am still tipsy, but I am far, far better than I was an hour ago. Also…the word ‘horny’ doesn’t do justice to the state I’m in. It’s hard to push him over…because he’s built like a rock, but he relents and lets me take charge. I make myself comfortable between powerful calves and thighs, and deliver something just a little different.

He doesn’t understand it yet, but he’s getting the sloppiest, wettest head I know how to give. He probably thinks I’m still drunk, and maybe I am, but I can do this either way, and tipsy or not, I have a purpose. When his cock is dripping and soaked from base to tip in my spit, and he hovers on the brink of coming because even my sloppiest head is damn good, I make my move.

I haven’t done this since I was much younger, and it would be out of the question if we hadn’t been very sexually active lately, but before he knows what’s happening, I’m seated on his hips and guiding the head of his cock into me. I haven’t had a spit-fuck since I was in high school and desperate for sex whether lube was handy or not. It hurt, then, and it still burns now, because fitting something the size of Harry’s cock into my ass isn’t an easy project even under ideal circumstances.

Being a little drunk has its advantages, and being horny and determined helps a lot too. I ’push’ outward and down, hard, opening myself to the moderately slick thing underneath me, and it makes its way n while Harry grits his teeth and clenches his eyes shut. It’s embarrassing to admit it, but this is probably the only kind of sex I can have that keeps the illusion of ’tightness’ about me. I’ve had too much experience to even fake it anymore, but with only my spit between me and Harry’s cock, I feel as every bit as tight as the last time I tried this.

There won’t be any slam-fucking this way, not unless he wants to take me to the doctor tonight. Harry keeps still, just running his hands up my hips and thighs. I stick to small motions and rocking against the straining prick most of the way inside me. Letting it hurt is a way to vent emotions, and drive away dark thoughts. It’s real and alive and so am I. I crave closeness, and this as close as it gets, so much so that it takes real effort to keep going.

I can feel Harry’s thighs flexing with need while I grind myself onto his hips, coaxing him over the line, clenched tight around his cock and working it gently and steadily, knowing what the results will be…and they’ll be just what I want.

His hands tightening on my thighs and the muscles cording along his neck. The heavy pulse of the flesh inside me and the shudder that runs through his entire body. He’s coming hard while I keep moving, letting each motion carefully milk every last drop of come from him. I want all of it. I want his sensitive and freshly sated cock emptying its last droplets into me while he whimpers like a whipped dog because nothing feels as good as what I can make him feel. That’s what I want…and that’s what I get. Nothing less.

There’s no reason to move from where I am, draped across his chest, still impaled on his softening cock. I’m tired and I don’t really care if I come or not. I wanted his pleasure, and I got what I wanted…I am content. The feel of calloused hands stroking through my hair and down my shoulders is more powerful than any pathetic orgasm. Being this close is what I crave…what I need to remind that we’re together and safe and tomorrow really will come.

I feel sober again. He’s whispering sweet things to me, knowing full well that I lap up each honeyed word like a starving kitten face down in a saucer of cream.

“You think you can talk now, love? We can wait ‘til tomorrow if you like?”

The panic is gone, and I know I can deal with it all now. I know he loves me, and that he won’t hurt me to vent his anger. It gives me a confidence I’ve never had before. I don’t mind being totally honest.

It’s a breach of the first rule of queens everywhere: never lay all your cards on the table. No one should ever know exactly what you think and feel, because the mystery keeps them guessing, and that gives you the edge. Fuck rules. I have Harry. That’s all I’ll ever need.

“I was afraid. It might sound stupid, but when I saw the news…I saw how much was going on. I don’t want to add another complication, another risk when there are too many already. I don’t want to even imagine losing you over my petty grudge. I can’t even believe you’d arrange this much for me.

Harry…I don’t want to just take from you, and I know you want to give, but I want to do something to make this smoother. It isn’t just me getting even, it’s me showing that I can do more. I know Blaise, and I can get into his home and into his head easier than anyone else. Let me prove I can do this…please?”

He’s silent awhile. It is a lot to mull over, especially while I’m still on top him, enjoying the warmth and closeness, feeling his pulse against my cheek while I burrow a little closer to him, savoring the sensations it brings because he’s still inside of me.

“I don’t like it. You’d be at risk. If anyone caught on that you were playing him, you could get hurt. Maybe I don’t have the right to dictate all the terms, but I’m telling you honestly that I don’t want you involved that closely. Do you understand that I’ve only just found you? How long I’ve waited to feel this way for someone…anyone? It’s a fucking miracle that in this shitty world two people can feel like this…live like this and be content.

I don’t want that on the line. I don’t want to gamble on losing that. It’s a bet I wouldn’t take. Too much risk for too little gain. I’m going to ask you…just once…to change your mind about this. I can call it all off and we can do this another way. No harm, no foul. So it comes to this…are you sure that this is what you want?”

This is my time for silence. I am thinking carefully, even though I’m sore and tired and eager to sleep and forget tonight. It’s a question of what I want. He’ll let me have this…if I make it clear that I won’t back down. He’d let me take a risk like this because he loves me too much to stop me or let me feel helpless by keeping me here. I’m really not his dirty little secret. It’s intoxicating to think these things, and even more so to know them as true. I have never been so blessed…I’m a fool to risk it all.

But then…I am a fool.

“Yes. I want to carry my own weight. I’m not saying I wouldn’t feel better if you were somewhere nearby in case of trouble. You could do that, couldn’t you? Just stay out of sight in case I need help getting out of there? We don’t even have a plan yet, but that Hermione seemed like someone who thinks fast. We’ll come up with something that’s safe enough to try…I’m sure of it. But…I want to do this.”

“Alright then. It’s settled. I don’t like it, but we’ll do this one like you want it. Just…next time you have an idea…try to give me a heads up first before you drop any new surprises on me…okay?”

“Even the sexy surprises?”

“Mmm…let me get back to you on those. I think I can handle that kind of surprise. Preferably as often as they can be arranged.”

The smirk is back in place, and I know that understated chuckle well. He’s happy, even if he’s not entirely pleased with my choice. That’s my lover. My Harry. Blaise Zabini…wherever you are…look out! ‘Cause revenge may be a slow train, but it’s coming your way now.

Well…maybe not exactly now. That perfect lover of mine is getting hard again, swelling inside of me and coming back to life, making me respond the same way against his stomach…and as good as I feel right now, a second round would go a long way toward making up for a night that started off pretty poorly.

What a terrible life. Insert your own sarcastic smirk. I’m going to be busy for awhile.


TBC!!!