Chapter Eight
Cliff
A sharp knocking on my apartment door woke me at a god-awful hour of the morning. Jacque ran circles over my bed, thumping his legs as I shuffled to the door while I threw on my robe. “Mrs. Pemberlin?” I yawned and stared down at my landlady as she peered at me and around me. The days before had been a blur, but a polite Buck waved at me from my couch before standing to greet my, hopefully not homophobic, landlady.
I froze in horror. Everything was groggy, but I didn’t want my landlady to hate me.
“Good to see you’re doing better, son. I knew you were an omega, but an aspect?” She clucked her tongue and barged in, her pink, freckled skin stretching amid wrinkles as she smiled down at a curious Jacque that ran over.
“Am I the only one that didn’t know?” I sagged and slumped back against the door.
“I’m a damn witch. I know everything.” She turned her watery blue gaze onto Buck and squinted. “And that one’s got Vidalia’s mark all over him. Cliff’s sister Eve told me everything.”
She pointed a shaking finger at Buck and earned a leering grin in response. “My brother was favored by her, and my brother-in-law earned her blessing. Their daughter is named for her.”
Mrs. Pemberlin nodded sharply with approval. “I was worried sick. I didn’t know who the hell I could call, a lost omega just out here unprotected.”
Buck shrugged. “It worked out. Shame he had to learn that way.”
“Well, a crash course does wonders. You rutted him through a heat? I’m too old to have no pee sticks that aren’t expired but I could run out—” she said, but I choked and waved my hands dismissively.
“No! No. No need. Nope. Nothing like that happened.” I sighed as Buck laughed and agreed with me.
“Not breeding with him until a whole lot of cussin’, discussin’, and consentin’ has been done.” Buck gave me a simmering look that told me what we did was safe. “And consent isn’t given in heat.”
Mrs. Pemberlin gave Buck a slow nod and folded her arms. Her pale, freckled skin rasped dryly as she moved. “I have respect for gods. Not patience.”
“You may ask him any questions and I will not intervene.” Buck raised his hands, and Jacque galloped back over and into his lap for a snuggle. His little bunny chittering purr made my cheeks warm.
“Alright. So you got thrown into heat artificially. Who all touched you?” She stared me down, and I swallowed a lump in my throat.
“Grim kept me safe. I— Nobody put anything in me, I mean. Not really. Buck wouldn’t—” My cheeks burned, and she rolled her hand as if demanding I carry on. “Nothing happened!”
“Nothing,” Buck said as he made air quotes and Jacque barked in disagreement. Even my own bunny betrayed me. The god slouched into the couch and patted between Jacque’s ears.
“Define nothing, god.” She glared at me.
“Nobody put their dick in him, if that’s what you’re asking. Didn’t even allow him to suck my cock, but he got what he needed.” Buck poked Jacque’s nose and earned an affectionate nibble. “Still pure as the driven snow—back there, at least.”
“Well, how did you handle that much omega for that long?” She glared at him once more.
“He handled himself. And if he needed more, he had my body to use as needed.” Buck kept his tone polite. “And I’m old and wise enough to control myself.”
She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes before shaking her head and gesturing at me. “What’s the game plan? You moving out to live with him?”
“I dunno. I just woke up, ma’am. I was about to walk over and ask if you needed anything.” I sagged and her expression softened.
“Too good to me, boy. I’m fine on my own. Your godfriend takes care of something in my backyard for me and we’ll be golden and even.” She gestured at Buck, who raised a brow.
“The dead man you’ve buried out back?” Buck halted his ear scritches.
I knew it!
“Mhm.” She stared at the wall in that direction, face a mask of something.
“He deserve it?” Buck resumed his strokes.
“Ain’t my business to hand out karma. But he wasn’t kind, that was for certain. I need someone to look like him while we go get some legal stuff tied up and freshen up the corpse to have him buried.” She examined her nails. “His pension’s almost out, anyway. Left it all to some floozie up north, so if he died…well, you know.”
Buck twisted his lips. “How’d you do it?”
She shrugged. “It’s more of what I didn’t do. I stopped reminding him to take his medicine, stopped pestering him to go to the doctor every time he felt a twinge. I stopped being a nag, and it was enough to end him. Don’t get me wrong, I had my eye on some furniture polish on the stairs for a while when he was being ornery.” She shook her finger at me and I believed her. It was hard to believe I’d lived fifty feet from a dead body for the past few years.
“Make the appointments you need to, and I’ll offer my services. Cliff needs rest and my care for the time being. It’s my intention to see to his happiness, and if that’s in my current lands or elsewhere, it’s not up to me.”
“I wanna see Rayne. And my niece. I want to—” I shook my head. “I’ve got two classes left and was going to take them this summer. I can do them online. I want my degree.”
“I’m not too terribly tied down as of yet, Cliff. I can visit my lands if we need to stay here.” Buck’s little smile made my heart flutter.
“Alright. Stay however long you need. I’ll be heading downstairs.” Mrs. Pemberlin waved me off and shuffled away, leaving me alone with Buck and dreading the conversations to come.
He didn’t try to start the dialogue, nor did he ignore me. Quite the contrary, Buck stared intently, though he did spare enough to keep Jacque preoccupied, which made me jealous. “Bunny boi! Want to snuggle and get a lettuce?” I said the words and cringed the moment I did.
As if he understood my hesitancy, Buck laughed and nodded his head toward the fridge. “I picked up an assortment while I was out.”
I sighed in relief, and Jacque abandoned his lap to follow after me with his chipper little yip of happiness. As per usual, I opened the fridge and Jacque dove into the produce drawer, rooting around whatever he could scrounge while I prepared him a mix of healthy things, banana and other options. I also sneakily dropped in a few crushed pills that he’d likely not had over the past however many days I was missing. “I gotta call my work,” I said, musing to myself as I sat Jacque’s bowl down and distracted the bunny out of the fridge with an entire ear of corn hanging from his mouth.
“According to the girl at the bar, you were fired for no-call,” Buck’s voice whispered over my shoulder, bringing with it a warm sort of shiver. “I might could help you get the job back, if you wanted.” He traced a hand over my shoulder and to my neck, fingers wandering the back of my head almost innocently. His foot tapped the door to the fridge closed.
“Fuck,” I said, hanging my head as Buck lined himself up behind me and circled his arms, absent the erection I’d become accustomed to those past few days. He’d become essential and comfortable to me. “I’m gay and I’m unemployed.”
“You weren’t gay before?” Those warm hands wrapped around my middle and met, pulling me in close, almost platonically.
“I—I dunno. Yes? No. I’d never done anything, and I told myself if I never did it, I never was.” I sighed in defeat that ended when a hand traced up my chest, parting the sides of my robe to drag a warm hand across my sensitive skin. “Schrodinger’s homo, you know?”
He paused at that admission and stifled a single huff of laughter. “We cannot help what we are. I can no more be human than I can be a star. I can look like one, but it’s just my skin. Same with you. You’re meant to love a male, here.” He tapped over my heart.
“Gay.”
“Maybe. But I prefer to think of you as mine .” The way he said that last word made my skin flush. My cock pulsed and hole twitched. “Gay implies you like men. Being mine implies you like me.”
I could get on board with that. My entire core hummed with whatever strange energy we shared. I needed him, needed to be filled by him. “Then what are you?”
“Yours. And before that, I was nothing. I was sand at your feet, dust in the wind, and the foundation of the earth. I existed to hold things aloft and bury the world. I existed for others, for a purpose.” Buck’s soft lips found my neck just under my ear and he kissed with the gentlest of plucks. His breath tickled me. “But I do not need to fuck you until you are ready.”
“My heat thing is over, right?” I weighed my options. “What’s the likelihood I’ll end up butt pregnant from letting it happen?”
“Impossible. The scent has faded, and you’re past your ovulation. We have no risk.” Buck took my question as a sort of consent and kissed my neck again, making me shudder and groan, losing strength against the fridge when he leaned into me.
With all the eagerness I could manage, I pushed my boxers down and fisted my nearly hard cock. A groan and hiss of pleasure spilled over my lips before I shrugged free of my robe, letting it pool at my feet.
Jacque, offended at the display, barked once, grabbed the metal edge of his bowl, and dragged it off behind my couch with a series of clatters, clangs, and scooting noises. A few thumping noises preceded him galloping over to the window and pressing a button. Mad.
He’d get over it.
I barely stifled a huff of laughter that ended the moment Buck released me and let his hands caress my exposed obliques, sculpted to near perfection by years of work. I’d always been desperate to be a gorgeous model of fitness. He appreciated the definition and nipped at the flesh of my shoulder while his hands wandered my gutters , seeking my fisted cock for a pump. After, he drew my hands to brace on the fridge, returning one hand to my cock and the other to my stomach to wander every pit and hill of my abdomen. His fingers studied them until he brushed soft tips through the groomed bush of my pubes. There, he fisted a handful and released, reassuring himself of my maleness. I liked the little tinge of pain.
As his fingers left my hair, they circled my hips. Then, with practiced ease, he pumped my cock in a familiar, rhythmic motion. Exhausted and shaking the days before, he’d done that for me as I’d pleaded, refusing to fill me in the ways my body demanded, ways that my brain knew way better than to.
His fingers found my hole and did as I’d imagined, one sliding into the source of my foreign wetness, pushing deep before curling against my spot. The alien lightning bolt of pleasure took me by surprise and I shouted, hips jerking forward as I painted the front of the fridge in hard, spurting streaks. “F-fuck!”
“Not yet. Let’s see if that gets the edge off for you.” Buck nuzzled the back of my head, down my neck, where he kissed and licked in small circles. He bit as another finger joined his first, scissoring me open to join a third.
Sure, I’d slipped a finger inside me on occasion and found that forbidden spot. I knew better than to tempt fate with it, but when Buck touched me there, I cried aloud and rocked back into him. A year ago, I’d have been spent and whimpering, but I had almost no refractory period since I’d discovered masturbating that way.
Over the course of my sexual awakening, most of which had happened in blurry delirium, I’d come to accept I’d never find my pleasure solely from my hand alone. Solely by jerking my cock. I needed something inside me. Something more. Something hot. “Fuck me, Buck. Please.”
The hand at my hole abandoned me with a slick noise when the sudden chill of it pressed between my shoulder blades, forcing me against the fridge. I turned my head to eye the man—no—god, and I relished that strange fire in his eyes. Power, pure and simple. It caught me with a gasp that halted in my throat as he lifted one of my legs and propped it at the knee, forcing me to balance against the fridge and his own grasp. “Tell me what your heart says. Tell me what the earth tells you. Do you hear our mother goddess?”
I—had no idea what he was asking, but at the same time, my mind went blank before words whispered through my very soul. “I am an aspect of you, my god of stone, the source of my symbolism and stature. As I stand a mighty testament to you, the Weathering Cliff. I am resilient and strong, but only as long as you hold my form. But from your altar sacrifices were given, and from my ledge the burdensome shall sacrifice their last. Be one with me. As you are within me; I also am part of your visage.”
A snarl of pleasure and breathless shudders broke free of his lips before his cock pressed to my wanton hole. “As so many have been given to me. So many have given themselves to your ideal. For the good of others, it is right for some sacrifices must be made.”
“Become part of me.” My words broke free in a whisper as he breeched my hole and thrust forward, grasping my cock tight to keep me from jizzing all over the fridge again. The cry that broke free of my lips, wounded and sharp, silenced as he adjusted his arms and drew my head to my shoulder, where we shared an awkward kiss.
He grunted as he pushed into me, our bodies colliding unceremoniously and the way he twisted his face to mine sucked the breath out of me as we became one. And, when he broke the kiss, something other than air left me. A whisper of doubt, of shame, incompleteness—it all left me in a rush. With his pressure holding me there, I only had a moment to gather my thoughts before he moved.
Lightning and magic danced in my core. The earth moved beneath us. The sands of distant deserts shifted, and rocks tumbled in unwitnessed coves. Every thrust and rock of his hips drew pleasure from deep within me. Something more than an orgasm.
He heightened his pace, breath growing harsh as he found my cock and pumped, using the fridge to keep me steady. Half-empty condiment bottles rattled inside as the precipice of pleasure rose once more. I could hold it back.
I could wait.
I— He clenched my cock and ended the rise of pleasure within me. “We arrive at the same time.”
A prominent glans raked back and forth over my tender nerves, striking the bundle at every twitch. Mind-numbing pleasure overtook me as my entire body shook. I couldn’t hold back. I couldn’t go forward. On the edge of myself, a cliff, I stood, and for the good of my people, I fell…
Buck slammed home and eased his grip, jerking me expertly as cum splashed over the fridge and onto the floor. My inner walls clamped tight over him, milking his hardness for every drop of hot seed as it gushed into me like he’d not had a lover in years. In eons.
Sedimentary stone eroded into the sediment it originated from in the aching eternity as our pleasure mounted and we came together, filling me so delightfully.
“Again,” he said, the tone of his voice a snarl that I obeyed, rocking back against him for a few mere moments before my cock erupted and he gushed in sympathy.
Slick trailed my quivering thigh, the one I stood on poised about a growing puddle that found cum joining it soon enough.
It repeated then once more, Buck wringing me dry of my sanity until I sagged. Defeated, I slipped off his cock and trembled, finding my weight supported in his sinewy arms. “Damn. And I thought you were the one that was supposed to buckle.”
He chuckled darkly and gravity failed us for a sore moment as we collapsed into my bed by dint of some freaky god power. “You were saying?”
“Fair.” I squirmed as he kissed my neck and pulled out of bed, his groin a dripping, glistening mess. Unprepared for the sensation, I bolted for the restroom to clean up and returned, finding Buck cleaning our mess from the fridge while Jacque sat perched on the couch, staring at me. Judging. That little squint told me all I needed to know.
Gross.
The thought tickled my ear. I often did that with Jacque, imagined little conversations and simple responses. It’s why I got him the buttons in the first place. “Yeah, well, you see how gross you think it is if we ever get you a girlfriend!”
“That’s not going to happen.” Buck glanced over.
“Whaaa? Are you kidding me? Look at that little face!” I gave a pseudo pout that made Buck lift a brow with amusement.
“He’ll never mature enough to do that. He’s infantilized and whatever damage done has left him rather simple…” He trailed off.
Jacque snorted and ran to his buttons. Mad! Mad! Mad!
“Though I’ve been wrong before.” Buck blinked a few times.
I huffed and stalked over, ready to pick him up, but he ran up to his little display of buttons, studying them before glancing at me then the board.
Daddy! Smell. Shower. Mad!
“I think he’s trying to tell you that you smell bad and need a shower.” Buck snorted, and I secretly cursed the day I trained him on those damn buttons.
Another. Daddy! Jacque pressed the buttons and Buck froze, accepting the moniker, even if a little reluctantly. Jacque pressed his feeding button. Gimme salad, bitch!
Nice. I grinned as Buck grabbed one of my towels and went about covering himself and making a salad for my little cotton-tailed bunny. Jacque really seemed to like Buck, and if I had to be gay, I was glad it was with someone he liked.