🔞 First Time For Everything
PERCEPTION: The air in the bedroom is hot and humid, despite the open windows. The cross breeze ruffles your hair, but does nothing to actually cool down your body.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: It’s under your skin, this heat.
You lean back in bed and hope you don't sweat it up too bad. At least not before the real workout starts.
"Doing all right, detective?" Kim asks as he sits down on the bed next to you.
EMPATHY: You've been together for a while now, but detective has become a sort of term of endearment he uses for you.
INLAND EMPIRE: It's weird. Not a normal pet name someone might use for a lover. But every time you hear him call you detective like that, you feel so happy and loved that you could cry. It reminds you of your rebirth in Martinaise, of shaking his hand for the first time and knowing that somehow, some way, this man was going to become incredibly dear to you.
"Nope,” you say gravely. “Bad news, Kim, I’ve been diagnosed with a terrible illness.”
“Oh? And what would that be?”
“Severe lack of Kim Kitsuragi’s hands in my pants.”
“An unusual diagnosis, but I’ll trust Gottlieb’s opinion on this one,” he says, smirking.
“Oh God,” you groan. “Please don’t make me think about Nix Gottlieb in bed.”
Kim laughs. A warm, wonderful sound he's only recently stopped suppressing or covering up with a cough. Usually. Around you, at least.
EMPATHY: He's been trying to open up more with you, but it's hard for him. These anxieties are so deeply part of him at this point, so beaten into him, but he's making progress.
INLAND EMPIRE: Just like you.
EMPATHY: You've come a long way in large part thanks to him. And vice versa.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Yeah, you’ve definitely come a lot because of him.
Kim starts unbuttoning his shirt, and you take that as your cue to crawl across the bed to throw your arms around him and finish the job. You feel his breath catch in his chest as you fumble with the buttons, but he firmly grabs your hands and lifts them away. He presses his lips to the backs of each, then releases them.
EMPATHY: He may be enjoying your touch, but he’s certainly not about to let you set the pace here.
"Awfully eager, aren't we?" he says softly. To anyone else he would appear almost expressionless, but you know the subtleties of his face well enough to know that a very smug grin is forming just beneath the surface.
"Y-yeah, a little bit I guess," you say sheepishly.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," he answers. "There's a proper order to these things, you know."
"Yeah, I..." You trail off, sentence entirely forgotten as he slowly pulls his slender arms from the shirt and drapes it carefully across a nearby chair.
PERCEPTION: His body is peppered with scars, especially across the chest and stomach. From knife wounds and gunshot wounds and God knows what else.
EMPATHY: It's not a source of insecurity or pride for him, it simply is. A neutral aspect of his body. You only know the stories behind a few of them. Maybe he doesn't remember all of them. Maybe he doesn't want to. You've never pushed him on it.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: More importantly, the waistband of his pants sits low enough on his hips that you can see the sharp edges of the “V” formed by his oblique muscles and a soft line of dark hair curling down between.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Human abdominal hair generally grows in four broad patterns. Kim has a sagittal pattern which forms a narrow vertical band that--
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Yeah, yeah, he's got a happy trail and it's extremely hot.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Speaking of colloquial anatomical terms, the rectus abdominus and the external obliques are sometimes called "V-lines" or "c--"
SUGGESTION: Who cares what they’re called? Just get your hands on his soft, beautiful body.
AUTHORITY: Impossible. You will not touch him until he decides to let you. You are his thrall at this moment, and you’re loving every second of it. You pathetic wuss.
He grabs hold of your necktie--a nice, non-horrific one you bought upon returning to Jamrock--and tugs lightly. He hooks a finger of his other hand between the neck of it and your throat, then pulls you forward a little harder.
EMPATHY: He knows you've got a thing for choking, but you know he's not comfortable doing that to you. This is his little compromise. It's not really the same thing, but it’s a sweet gesture, really.
He leans in as if to kiss you, but his lips just barely brush yours before he lets go of your tie and you fall backward.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: God dammit, what a tease.
He smirks as he removes his belt and tosses it on the floor. The pants, though, he carefully sets aside next to the shirt. They’re really nice slacks that he tailored himself, and the shirt would have to be dry-cleaned if God forbid it were wadded up on the floor, and… Well, he can’t just drop all his personal standards in the name of lust.
Now he’s untying your tie and stripping off your shirt, which is already drenched in sweat, then your pants and underpants, which are also a bit moist for other reasons. If he’s disgusted by you and your gross, wet body, he doesn’t show it. He just gently runs his hand across your ample stomach, stopping right above the place you’re most desperate for him to touch.
PERCEPTION: His body is so close now you can feel the heat radiating from it, filling the narrow gap between the two of you.
You’re already so hot--literally and figuratively--but you want to drink in the heat from him as well. You reach up to rest a hand on his pectoral muscle. It tenses slightly at your touch, then relaxes.
EMPATHY: He has some firm boundaries, but he's taught you both explicitly and implicitly just when and how to push them. Luckily, you're a very quick learner.
He kisses your throat as you clumsily work your hands down his torso. With him straddling your thigh like this, certain things are quickly becoming hard to ignore. He suppresses a little gasp when you lightly, teasingly wrap your fingers around him.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He's so into this.
EMPATHY: More specifically, he's into you.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: And he'll be even more into you in a moment.
PERCEPTION: You are dimly aware of the snap of a latex glove. The comical splort of the lubricant. Then, his finger easing its way inside you.
“Ugh, Kim,” you breathe.
“Mhm?” he hums. “Something wrong?”
“God no.”
“I can stop if you’d prefer…”
“Don’t you dare,” you groan.
He laughs a quiet, incredibly self-satisfied laugh. Then he picks up the pace.
INLAND EMPIRE: It’s strangely overwhelming for you when he does this. Something about this fastidious, obsessively clean and well-groomed man being willing to dirty himself with such an act in pursuit of giving you pleasure…
EMPATHY: Don’t flatter yourself. Kim Kitsuragi is the very definition of a service top. He’s enjoying every second of this in his own private way. He wouldn’t be doing it if he didn’t.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The point is, it’s very nice of him to stick his finger in your butt, isn’t it?
SUGGESTION: You should thank him.
VOLITION: You absolutely should not do that.
The things he’s doing with his free hand right now combine with the pressure he’s applying inside you threaten to push you over the edge. But you had something more in mind for tonight. You’re not ready for this to end quite yet.
“Um, hang on,” you mumble, trying to push coherent words through the thick, sticky fog coating your brain. "How about... y'know, what we were talking about earlier...?"
Kim slowly removes his fingers from you. He hesitates. "You were serious about that?"
"I never joke about butt stuff."
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You're a man who loves to put things up his ass. Everyone who knows you knows this, and no one knows it better than Kim Kitsuragi, the guy who had two fingers in there just a second ago.
EMPATHY: But what you’re proposing here is… slightly different. Something new.
He raises an eyebrow, but remains silent.
“Kim, if you don't dick me down tonight, I will have cleaned things out for nothing,” you argue.
“Mm, I would’ve thought you’d be into that for its own sake,” he teases.
“All right, all right. But listen, I could’ve had tacos for dinner otherwise.”
“How considerate of you.” He removes the glove and drops it in the trash can nearby.
EMPATHY: Wait. He seems actually uneasy about this.
PERCEPTION: Small, thin worry lines are visible on his forehead and around his mouth.
You’ve done plenty of other activities--more groping, fingering, handjobs, and blowjobs than you can count--but never this.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: It’s about damn time.
EMPATHY: Ask him to share his concerns, but be delicate about it. Talking about this stuff can still feel embarrassing and weird for both of you at times.
“Yo, Kim, what’s the matter? Do you not want to get all up in these guts?” you say, slapping your own butt.
Kim snorts with amusement. “You have such a way with words, Harry.”
EMPATHY: Great, that was perfect.
He places a hand on your face and gazes intently at you. You lean into the touch hungrily, and in response he brushes a thumb across your bottom lip, back and forth.
"Seriously, though?" you murmur, eyes closed.
"Seriously?" he repeats, thinking. "I’m… not opposed to it. But, uh, are you sure about this?”
EMPATHY: He's afraid of hurting you. Physically, emotionally. Afraid of irreversibly changing your relationship, how you see him. He's never been so truly intimate with another person as he's become with you, and every day he's terrified of fucking it up.
"Are you kidding me? I'm so ready," you assure him.
"You've never actually done this before, though, have you?"
INLAND EMPIRE: Your memory is still patchy, but you're pretty sure you haven't.
"No, not exactly," you admit. "But it's not like I'm a fucking virgin here. I know what I want, Kim." You're leaning forward and staring him down now, one of his hands grasped firmly in both of yours.
Kim's expression softens. "And what exactly is it that you want, detective?"
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He already knows, obviously. But he wants you to say it out loud in so many words.
DRAMA: So give him what he wants: a show!
"I want your dick in my ass, Kitsuragi!" you declare, punctuating your sentence with a wink.
Then you fling yourself backwards into the bed and with a flourish, roll over onto your stomach. He watches with bemusement as you stick your weirdly bony ass in the air and gaze coyly over your shoulder at him. You have made your body into a terrible, scrunched up, wet pretzel. It's a display no human being in the world would find attractive except for Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, who has for some reason decided that you are the love of his life.
He blinks, silently taking in the scene before him. He's quiet for so long that you start wondering if maybe this wasn't the right course of action. Finally, he exhales a long breath ragged with the remnants of a suppressed chuckle.
“Kim, c’mo-o-on, don’t just stand there,” you whine, wiggling your hips. “10-33, officer in need of assistance!”
“That’s Lieutenant Kitsuragi to you, detective,” he says, grinning.
“10-4, sir, now get over here and demolish this ass already.”
“I’ll be giving the orders around here, Du Bois,” he says, one eyebrow raised. The goofy little smile is gone from his lips.
EMPATHY: It’s still in there somewhere. It’s just buried.
“Now lie down,” he orders. “No, on your back. I want to be able to see your face.”
A shiver runs down your spine. You eagerly comply.
PERCEPTION: The sound of a condom wrapper. Additional splorts of lube. The warmth of his hands on your thighs.
“Remember, tell me if it’s uncomfortable, alright?” he breathes.
“You worry too much,” you mumble, reaching up to squeeze his shoulders reassuringly as he hovers over you. “I trust you, Kim.”
A sharp, quiet sound involuntarily falls from his lips. He nods curtly, and then suddenly--finally--he’s inside. He slides his arms under you and tilts your pelvis up to get a better angle.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He was right, this is way different than stuffing a few fingers or 100 grams of cocaine up your butt.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Coincidentally, the weight of an average human penis is approximately 160 grams, so it’s--
You don’t have the opportunity to wonder why the hell you knew that, because the initial mildly pleasant sensations are quickly shifting into something more intense as Kim gets into a rhythm and hits deeper and deeper.
“Still okay?” he asks, his voice low.
“Very,” you gasp. “You wouldn’t believe how--ah--okay I am with this... Oh my God.”
“Oh, I can believe it,” he laughs.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The proof of your okayness with this situation is incontrovertible. Plus, your junk is currently pressed up against his abdomen.
PERCEPTION: The pressure is almost too much at its peak.
INLAND EMPIRE: The excruciating, euphoric pain of all the empty space inside you being filled. Literally, of course, for obvious reasons. But also metaphorically, as you gaze up at him in a haze of pleasure and realize somewhere in the depths of your mind that this is the happiest you’ve ever been in your life.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Getting fucked does have a happy-making effect, generally.
EMPATHY: Especially when the one doing the fucking loves you as much as he does.
INLAND EMPIRE: More. More. More. You need more of him.
You hook your legs around his torso and angle yourself upward as he thrusts, and then it’s all over. The next few minutes are a blur to you, but the one thing you’re pretty sure of is that he hits his own peak shortly after you do. You can’t help but wonder if watching you was what sent him over the edge.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Hot.
“Holy shit,” you exclaim breathlessly.
Kim kisses you on the forehead softly. “That good?”
“That good,” you confirm, pulling him close to you.
EMPATHY: You can feel the remaining tension leaving his body as he melts into you.
PERCEPTION: His breath tickling your cheek. His rib cage expanding to press against yours in a comforting rhythm. His strong fingers idly weaving their way through your tangled hair.
And then the ridiculousness of the whole thing hits you. You really just did that. Kim really just did that. The two of you created just an absolute mess here on this bed, and you think that’s beautiful.
Deep within you, some sort of guttural sound struggles to escape. You choke it back.
After a moment, Kim stands up and sighs. “I should probably change the sheets now. It’s late, we’ve got work in the morning, and I’m not going to sleep in that.”
“You came in your bed, now lie in it,” you say.
“Actually,” he says, grabbing your face with both hands and grinning deviously, “I came in you. This here? Your mess.”
“You still helped make it,” you say with a small laugh. And then you keep laughing. And laughing. Why the hell are you laughing? None of this was funny. It was stupid. There’s no reason to, but you laugh so hard that there are tears streaming down your face.
“H-Harry?”
“Uh-huh?” you gasp between sobs.
Kim slides back onto the bed next to you.
EMPATHY: The look in his eyes immediately reminds you of lying on the ground in Martinaise and bleeding out all over his hands. It’s the same desperate, searching, appraising look.
VOLITION: What are you doing? Stop it.
You inhale sharply at the sense memory, an interruption that cuts your laughing fit mercifully short.
“Sorry,” you breathe. “I don’t know what that was about.”
“It’s alright, detective,” Kim says quietly, still looking at you with concern.
EMPATHY: He keeps so much of himself hidden, and you can’t imagine him ever having an outburst like that, but there’s something in his face that tells you that he understands exactly what it was about.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He’s so repressed there’s no way he hasn’t had his own post-coital panic attacks.
INLAND EMPIRE: Is that what it was? A panic attack?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You enjoyed the things he was doing to you, though. But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you enjoyed them too much.
VOLITION: Just make sure he knows that. Don’t leave any room for misunderstanding.
You take a deep breath and reach up to stroke his hair. “I’m really glad we did this. Sorry for making it weird at the end.”
He rubs a thumb across your cheek, still damp with tears, and gives you a little nod.
SUGGESTION: Hug him.
EMPATHY: He looks so frail to you suddenly. Tired and afraid of something he cannot and will not speak of to anyone, not even you. Especially not you.
VOLITION: The man needs another damn hug, just go for it.
You fling your arms around him and hold him tight. He leans into it and returns the hug, resting his cheek against the side of your head.
“God, Kim, I love you,” you exclaim, face still buried in his chest. “You know that, right?”
He just laughs softly into your hair. He still doesn’t know how to respond to that exactly, but that’s fine with you. He tells you in other ways. Quieter ways. It’s in the smile he reserves just for you, the way his hands always seem to find their way into yours when you’re near him, the extra patience he’s found for your more egregious bullshit.
PERCEPTION: Your hair feels slightly damp.