Make sure you don’t misbehave
Brats don’t get to come
* * * *
Will you come inside?
I have a sturdy front door
Fuck me against
* * * *
We’ll make your neighbours
file a noise complaint; they’ll hear
you screaming my name
* * * *
He’d been writing back and forth with the mystery poet for about two months now.
His work took him near the area at least once a week. He made a habit of stopping by Rookton, strolling into the bookstore, browsing the travel section, casually taking down the book, extracting the latest poem, taking it to Chrysalis, getting coffee and a pastry—they stocked Hok’s berry tarts, which were just as good as his cupcakes—while he composed his response, then returning to Storyville to leave his newly-written poem in its place.
He was fairly sure the mystery poet was male; he referred to hisballs turning purple, and when he asked to be fucked, he always requested it in his ass, not any other orifice; they could be a woman who wasveryinto anal, Gareth supposed, discounting the balls line.
It felt illicit, akin to sexting an anonymous stranger—onlymuch more fun.
Gareth was both impressed and appalled with himself. He would never usuallythinkthese things, let alone intentionally write them down for someone else to read. He wasn’t into pony-play and didn’t have a daddy-kink; but when he wrote about that, it didn’t feel strange. It just seemed like part of their shared raunchy humour, not actual promises to perform the acts they wrote about—though honestly, Gareth found himself willing to act outmostof them. With the right partner.
The verses he got astonished him with how graphic they were. He blushed each time he read a new one, though his face sizzled slightly less as time went on. Still, theharder please, Daddyline had startled a shocked laugh out of him; worried he’d been loud enough to attract the attention of everyone in the store, sure that the reason for his reaction was written all over his face, he’d raced out the door before the stern-looking manager could come over to investigate. He’d only ventured back to leave his replying poem right before closing, when most shoppers had already left, and the manager was fussily tidying shelves in the self-help section.
Once, a store clerk, dressed in an honest-to-goodness sweater vest and bow tie, suddenly appeared at Gareth’s elbow, asking if he needed help—just as he was replacing the book on the shelf, his latest poem hidden inside. He had fumbled and dropped the book, hastily snatched it up off the floor, shoved it back on the shelf in what he hoped was roughly the right place, and high-tailed it out of the store, calling over his shoulder thathe was fine thanks but actually late for something really urgent.
He might have suspected that the store clerk—Carson, according to his nametag—was his poet; but he didn’t think anyone who looked that innocent was capable of writing the sort of perverse verse he’d been receiving. Besides, one time when he’d been sitting in the café, a cup of coffee and his Post-it pad in front of him, that same clerk had come in and kissed the barista—dark hair buzzed at the sides, chunky metal jewellery round his wrists, half-hiding faded burn scars that made Gareth suspect this was the artist who had welded together Gary the Dragon—on the lips. The way they’d only had eyes for each other, he didn’t think Carson was writing filthy poems to anyone else.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know who his poet was.
The notes he got from this unknown stranger amused him, intrigued him,consistentlyturned him on—he always took a table in the back corner of the café, hoping no one noticed the tent in the front of his jeans; he’d started ordering iced coffee, to counter the heat of his blush—gave him fodder to wank over, inspired fantasies he never would have dreamed up by himself.
The mystery was part of the appeal. But sometimes, Gareth imagined lips wrapped round his dick, a plump ass bouncing as he fucked it; a voice that, instead of seventeen syllables, was only capable of screaming the two in his name.
Conversations that lasted more than three lines.
Even if he wanted to, he wasn’t sure how to go about meeting his poet. If he hung around the store even more, stalking the travel section, hoping to catch the poet as they were leaving their latest missive, surely that would be an overstep. Gareth already felt like enough of a creep, walking past the entrance to the children’s reading room in order to leave his debauched notes inside a book that any oblivious person might pick up.
He couldn’t stop now, though. Reading these verses,composing his own back, had become the highlight of his entire week.
* * * *
Gareth stood outside the bookstore, as he had done every week for the past two months.
He was a bit early this week—one of his appointments had cancelled, leaving him to start his weekend early; with no idea what else to do with the unexpected free time, he’d made the drive to Rookton—and didn’t know if his last poem would be replaced by one from his anonymous correspondent yet.
Only one way to find out.
He took a deep breath, adjusted the strap of his messenger bag one more time, reminded himself that he wastechnicallydoing nothing wrong…and walked into the store.
