Power Trio

“Guys, holy shit. You will not believe it.” Evan opens the keycard door into their hotel room. “The convenience store had the hot ‘n’ sweet chips.”

“Oh?” Thekla’s lounging on their tidy queen bed in a pink button-down blouse and a pair of tight black faux-leather pants, reading a sci-fi paperback. She peers at him over her glasses. “What’s hot ‘n’ sweet?”

“It’s this limited edition flavor.” Evan drops them triumphantly onto the nightstand. “You can usually only get them in Canada. They are so fucking tasty. Yo, Kell!” He scans the suite, looking for the orc.

They got lucky with this hotel room. It’s clean and spacious, with a big airy window next to the bed looking out at the sun setting over the Connecticut wilderness. When they played Providence, the place they stayed had two twins, and a cockroach scuttled away as soon as they turned on the light, like in a cartoon.

“Where’s Kell?” he asks.

“She’s out doing a thing for Anise, I think,” Thekla says. “It’s just little ol’ me.”

“We’ll hold off on those till she’s here, then.” He kicks his shoes off and plops onto the bed, pulling his phone out. “Hi, baby.”

“Hi.” She scoots closer, lays her calf on him. She’s still been moody and low, still not her usual firecracker self onstage, but now, at least, she’s clinging to him and Kell again instead of just huddling inward. “I think I might try that bathtub out soon. It’s the first stop we’ve been to where it looks like an actual possibility and not a Fear Factor challenge.”

“Dude, I know. There’s packaged soaps in there.”

“How do you think we did in Rhode Island?”

“Kind of a punkier crowd, but I think Fossil Fuel really landed.” Evan absently rubs the sole of her foot as he opens his maps app. “I have doubts about Field Fire still. I don’t know if they were the crowd for it. And the name. Are we cool with two songs with FF initials?”

“I like it,” Thekla says. “It makes them kind of in conversation with each other. It’s a really good song.”

“It’s all you guys, really.”

“No, I’m serious.” Thekla dog-ears her book and puts it aside. She has an intense look. “It’s really good, Evan.”

Evan’s caught off guard. “Thanks, Thek.”

“You’re such a nice guy, Evan.” Thekla is searching his face. He isn’t sure what she’s looking for. “You’re so nice to me. Even when we first met and I wasn’t nice to you.”

“You were fine.”

“I was an asshole,” Thekla says. “You should have more of an ego.”

“I should as in it would make sense, or as in you want me to?”

“Both.” She sits up. “You’re not Vagrant Evan anymore. You’ve survived so much. And you’re smart and you’re gifted. But I think you’re still talking yourself down. You’re a touring musician, maybe with a label soon. You have a big dick and two girlfriends.”

He chuckles. “I’m serious,” she whines.

“You should have met me when I was in college, and right after I dropped out,” Evan says. “I was right about my dad, so I thought I was right about everything. That the world owed me something because of my good deed of bitching him out. That’s why I was so ready to come to New Layth. Now I try to be… humble. I was humbled.”

“I don’t think you need to be humble anymore. You’ve earned the right to be confident about yourself.”

“I’m just being careful these days,” Evan says. “That’s all.”

“Careful.” A needle-sharp grin crosses her face. “Well. If you just wanna let the rest of us walk all over you… what did Sion call you that one time? A good little doggy? That’s okay. Dogs are cute.” Thekla stands up on the bed, gives him a pat on the head.

At first it’s nice, but she turns it into a noogie. He flinches away. “Ack. Thek.”

Thekla drops into his lap. Her butt slides across his thighs. “What are you looking at?”

“I’m looking up stuff to do in New Haven. We’ll have the afternoon.”

“Let me see.” Thekla moves fast, snatches the phone from his hand as she hops to the floor. “The museum of art? Booooring. Boring human pictures.”

“Thekla, give me my phone back.”

“Technically, Evan, it’s my phone.” She waggles it at him. “Remember? I lent it to you. Maybe I want it again.”

He laughs as he stands up. “Okay.”

“Do you wanna trade for it? Those chips look kind of good. How about you give me your chips and maybe you can use my phone again for a while.”

“Thekla, I see what you’re doing.”

She rocks back and forth on her heels, eyes twinkling. “You gonna do something about it, doggy?”

He makes a sudden grab for the phone, but she’s faster, yanking it away. She spills onto the sheets. Her springy red hair fans out across the bed like a halo.

She licks her lips. He lowers his face.

She baps him lightly on the forehead with the phone. “Bad doggy!” She slips out between his legs, swatting his butt as she goes, and yanks his bag of chips off the nightstand.

“What’s in these?” She checks the ingredient list, making a point to crinkle the bag as she does so. “Maltodextrin. Malic acid? Weird. You eat this but you don’t eat bugs? What a weeeeeirdo.”

Evan stands to his full height. “All right, Thekla. Give me the chips. Not kidding this time.”

“What if I want some?”

“You can give them back,” Evan says, “and ask nicely.”

“Hmmm.” Thekla gives the bag a sniff. “I don’t think so. How about this, little doggy?” She taps the bag on her hip. “How about you gooooo fetch?” And she tosses his chips out the window.

Evan tackles her onto the bed.

He understands intellectually, as he lands on top of her, that they’re only two floors up and the bag is still sealed. He can just go out and get it. But Thekla doesn’t want him to understand intellectually, and right now he doesn’t want to either.

“That was the last one in the fucking store,” he snarls. She makes a move to roll away from him, but he straddles her, pins her down. “Is this what you were hoping for? Is that why you’re being such a brat?”

She swallows. Evan remembers the first time he saw her naked, how he watched the way her neck moved when she does that. She nods.

“Then how about this for a trade. You give me that—” He yanks the phone out of her hand and tosses it onto his suitcase. “And I give you exactly what you just earned.” He takes hold of either side of her blouse, then rips it open, sending several of her buttons flying.

“Evan!” Thekla yelps.

“Shut up.” He spreads her blouse fully, revealing her heaving chest, checking furtively as he does to make sure he hasn’t actually ripped any fabric. He can sew those buttons back on later. He reaches behind her and unclasps her frilly pink bra, one-handed. “Off,” he orders. She eagerly shrugs her bra straps down her arms.

“Was that okay?” he whispers, as she tosses her bra onto the bedpost. “With the—”

She cackles as she makes a break for it, trying to slide out from under him again. He catches her, flips her over and buries her face in the pillows, keeping his grip firmly on the back of her head. Her butt raises into the air as she play-struggles. He smacks it, making a loud thwack against her pants’ shiny black polyester. “These off too.”

Her hands, shaking with lust, unbutton and unzip, and then she peels her pants down, her voluptuous curves blooming out of the pleather tightness. Underneath, she’s wearing a brand-new pair of fishnets, and nothing else.

A wave of love and gratitude for this girl breaks on Evan, one that threatens to get him out of character, makes him want to lift her face from the pillows and kiss her. Focus, Evan. Once you’ve scratched her itch.

Instead, he spanks her again before she can finish taking her pants all the way off, sending ripples along her pliant body, hard enough that he can see the handprint on her cheek. She gasps as he yanks her backward, her legs still trapped from the knees down in shiny polyester.

He drags her ass against his crotch, pulling a luxurious groan from her. Thekla is soaked; a trickle beads on the fishnet encasing her inner thigh. She starts to prop herself up on her elbows. He plants another slap on her butt. “Don’t you fucking move.” He grabs her arms, wrenches them behind her, and pulls her blouse the rest of the way off. He whips his belt out of his pants. “This is what you were asking for?” He wraps it around her forearms and cinches it at her wrists, locking her arms in place. “This is what you get.”

He leans in, whispers: “Comfy?”

She gives an experimental tug. “Tighter.”

He slides the buckle another notch. “Yesss,” she hisses, arching her back to get her hips further into the air.

“I said don’t move.” With a crackling tear and a breathy cry from Thekla, Evan rips the fishnets open between her legs.

He runs a fingertip along her slit. “You’ve been trying to get me like this for a while, haven’t you?”

The pillows shift as she nods furiously.

“Now you’re gonna reap what you sow.” He shoves a finger inside her, feels her walls twitch at the intrusion. He adds another, and she grunts with effort. She’s so tight with her legs stuck together that even these two fingers are a crushing squeeze; they’ve gotten great at fitting him inside her, but there’s no way she’ll take him like this, as determined as she might be. He frees her from her pants and pushes her pelvis onto the surface of the bed, and the pressure relaxes as she opens up for him. Her pussy is so beautifully pink against her light green skin. He grips an ankle and pulls her to the edge of the bed, flips her onto her back, and kneels before her spread thighs.

Everything of his is so big compared with everything of hers, even with the generous curvature of her hips, that sex with Thekla is like playing with a cheat code on. When he licks her, his tongue covers her entire pussy, and when he goes deeper it closes around him, hot and needy, almost like a kiss to her mouth. The goblin doesn’t taste like any human he’s been with, or Kell. Mingled with her linen-scented bodywash and the tang of her sweat is a note of honeysuckle sweetness that makes it hard to stop.

It’s a beautiful view, too, her tattooed tummy, her heavy breasts, her amber eyes. When she squeezes those eyes shut, and her stomach’s rise and fall picks up with her breathing, and the first winking contraction of her pussy clasps his tongue, he pulls away.

“What—” Thekla’s eyes open again, a pleading look on her face. “Evan. I’m so close.”

“I’ll let you come after you apologize,” he says. “Say sorry for throwing my shit out the window.”

Her wicked grin returns. “Gonna have to work harder than that.”

“You want harder?” Evan straddles Thekla as he unzips his fly. He frees his cock and pushes it up between her breasts. He feels the goosebumps texturing her silky green skin. “Suck it,” he commands, and she sucks it, enthusiastically.

Evan loves Thekla, and Thekla loves sucking Evan’s dick. But she is not very good at it. Her lethal orthodontia makes it a careful, harrowing process. He’d prefer to skip this, get right to some sweet, tight, mutual relief, but Thekla wants the alpha fantasy. So he fists her ginger hair and fucks her face, shoving himself far enough in that she chokes and gags.

“You want to call me good little doggy now?” He grabs a handful of her ass.

“Gnhng,” she replies.

He drops her head onto the bed to give her a break, burying a stab of natural guilt at the black tears on her cheeks and the lip gloss marks at the base of his cock. Thekla always does up her face on days she wants to play rough. She likes how it smears. Judging by the way her thighs are squeezing and pressing together beneath her fishnets, she’s starving for more friction.

He turns her onto her stomach and loosens the belt a few notches, re-tightening it around her wrists so that only her hands are bound. He guides her clasped hands down past her butt, and slides her arms up behind her knees, so that she’s stuck curled up, hugging her own legs to her chest. He saw Kell do this to her once, and marveled at her flexibility (“You can thank YogaTube,” she told him after).

He gathers her into his arms. Thekla’s eyes widen as she realizes what’s coming.

She cries out as Evan plucks her off the bed, up into the air, bracing her back against his chest. She squirms helplessly, trussed up like a gift. He strokes his shaft along her, feels her lips glide and drip on him. It’s amazing how easy it is to throw this tiny goblin around.

“So small,” he murmurs in her ear. “So tight. But you’ve gotten so good at taking me, haven’t you, Thek?”

Her breathing is shallow and shaky. “Uh huh.”

“You know what I’m gonna do?” He pushes another long thrust past her lips, gives her a look at his length. “I think I’m going to use you like a fucktoy, Thekla. I think that’s what you owe me.” He guides his bound girlfriend down, her knees parting as the head of his cock stretches her open.

“Oh, God,” she whimpers. Her toes curl. He sinks her further, feeling her cushioned thighs quake beneath his hands. Her stomach visibly braces as she prepares herself. She’s so slippery it’s like she’s sucking him in. The lovers watch her body part for him. “Oh God.”

With a sudden thrust, he fills her completely, spearing her right to her core. “Oh God!” she wails, thrashing her head back, her shoulders seizing, and Evan clutches desperately to keep her steady. His hand ends up squashed between her breasts, up against her racing pulse.

No time to ease her in. He starts a merciless pace. Judging by her airy, erotic moans, Thekla doesn’t mind. He gives himself up to the urge, bounces her like he’s jerking himself off with a sex doll, exulting in her snug, wet heat as it quivers around him.

“You thought you were so much better than me the first time you saw me, didn’t you?” His hips clap against hers with bruising vigor. “Now look at you.”

She shakes her head rapidly. “I didnnf—” The hand at her breasts raises and clamps over her mouth, immobilizing her completely. He pulls her even tighter to him, so that she’s gazing up at him, infatuation plain in her wild saffron eyes. He goes even faster, bends at the hip slightly to get a better angle and hit her where she likes it best. He won’t be able to sustain this for long. It’s a good thing she’s so flexible and he’s gotten back into shape; otherwise someone would have thrown their back out by now.

A constant keen comes from Thekla now as the pleasure overtakes her. Her tongue laps at his fingers. Her teardrop breasts squash against her pinioned thighs. Her fogged-up glasses jostle off of her face and clatter to the floor. Evan’s muscles burn, but he can feel the spasms racking her body. Hang in there.

He moves his hand from her mouth to her delicate neck. “You gonna be a good girl now?”

“Yes,” she gasps.

He sticks a finger between her lips to wet it, then rolls it against her clit, working her ruthlessly. “You sorry for being such a little brat?”

“Yes!”

“Say it. Say sorry and I’ll let you come.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’ll be good!” Her abdomen flexes, crushing her velvety insides around him. “Don’t stop! Please!”

He sinks his hand into her stomach, just above her mound, and feels himself moving beneath that adorable little paunch. “Whose cock are you coming on?”

“Yours!”

“My name.”

“Evan!” She drags his name out into a wordless wail, and her pussy contracts and flutters as her orgasm tears through her. She’s spasming and thrashing with such violence that Evan has to put her down face-first into the pillows. His muscles sing with relief.

He slides her arms back behind her, unfolding her from the pretzel he made of her. Then he puts his hands on her shoulders and fucks her into the bed like he’s trying to break it. Now that he doesn’t need to worry about dropping her, he can focus on enjoying his girlfriend. Thekla may not be a Greek statue come to life like Kell, and she might take a submissive role, but she’s a fantastic lover, so ample and reactive. Her hourglass frame has so many handholds and curves to explore. Every thrust travels up her compact body, sends a rolling shockwave through her beautiful ass, and extends the sharp cry from her lips. She bites down on the pillow and Evan winces as he hears it rip between her teeth.

They’ll never be able to stay in this nice hotel again.

“Where do you want it?” he manages, while he still has the presence of mind.

“Infide!” She releases the pillow, spits out feathers. “Inside me!”

He yanks her bound arms to help find purchase, letting the pressure build in him, staring at her filigreed back piece, slick with her sweat. She twists her head round, cheek still smushed into the bed. “I fucking love you.” Her eyes are huge and wet, ringed with her running eyeshadow. “Ssairavika ansaia, Evan. I love you.”

He loves her too, but he’s forgotten how to talk. He’s high on Thekla, floating and lost in his desire. He wants to spend the rest of his life inside of her. He wants to keep her here beneath him, away from anything in the world that could ever hurt her. His teeth grit. His orgasm is cresting.

She’s grinding her ass back against him as much as he’s thrusting forward now, flexing and gyrating. “Come in me.” Her walls coil around him. “Breed me.”

The request, biologically impossible as it is, throws some kind of primal switch in him, and he lets out a growling, extremely un-Evan-sounding “Fuck!” as he explodes inside Thekla. Every uncontrollable buck of his hips drives him deeper into his goblin girlfriend until he’s fully encased in her shivering body, pushing her off her knees and fully prone onto the bed as she mewls his name again and again. He empties himself into her, overcome with lustful possessiveness as she twitches and sighs. Another orgasmic pulse doubles him over, and his cum spurts out from the scant space left in their connection, pooling between her pillowy thighs where they squish softly out from her ruined fishnets.

He crumples onto Thekla, shifting so his weight is more on the bed than on her. “Evannn.” Her shaky voice issues from somewhere under his chest. “Evan.” She repeats his name like a prayer.

“Heya, Thek.”

“Hi, big boy.” She shifts a little, gets more comfortable. He shivers as the motion stirs him around inside her.

“Good?”

“So, so good.” Thekla’s hands are still bound, but she presses her palms to him affectionately. “I knew you had that in you. I knew it.” She shimmies her hips, causing a rivulet of his seed to spill from her. “And now you have it in me.”

He coughs out a laugh.

“Stay inside, okay?” She taps his stomach. “But can you get my arms?”

He eases up enough to get the belt off her. He cringes at the grooves it left in her sage skin, but he knows better than to apologize. One thing he loves about Thekla is that she knows exactly what she wants. He lays a kiss on the nape of her neck.

“No fair.” She wiggles. “I wanna kiss too. But I don’t want you to pull out.”

“Let’s—hold on.” He carefully winches her leg up and turns her around, both of them groaning at the sensitive movement. She tilts her head back to give him access to her lush lips.

For being such a kinky person, Thekla receives him sweetly, like a blushing bride, always starting tentative and waiting to be teased open. It has a way of making Evan feel protective of her, even as he runs his tongue along teeth so sharp that they could draw blood if he’s not careful. She tastes like vanilla chapstick and smooth cigarettes.

“I hope the you thought you were so much better stuff wasn’t too much.” Evan gives her lower lip a gentle bite as they break off. “You were very accommodating.”

“Have I taught you nothing?” Thekla gives him a little whack on the chest. “Don’t say sorry, Evan, okay? You just rocked my fucking world. You are a badass.”

He chuckles, starts to pull out. She crosses her legs around him. “You aren’t getting your cock back until you say it.”

“Say what?”

“Say ‘I am a badass.’”

“I am a badass,” Evan says.

“See, now you’re just being obedient. Not very badass of you.”

They resolve to test the tub. Evan gathers Thekla's glasses and buttons from the floor and deposits them on the nightstand, while Thekla peels off her tights and takes a quick shower to get clean. “Eww, Evan. You humans cum so much. Nasty boy.”

“What happened to breed me?” He steps out of his pants, which are definitely going to need laundering.

Thekla’s ears go very pink. “Did I say that? I never said that. You didn’t hear that.”

“Whatever you say, Miss Womb Tattoo.”

“It’s a goblin warren tattoo! It’s historical!”

“Yeah, I know. I did a little googling.”

Thekla buries her face in her hands.

“Do I have it right that holly is a goblin fertility symbol?” Evan says.

“Evan, shut the fuck up and make the bath go.”

“It’s okay,” he laughs as he flips the toggle and seals the drain. “It was hot, actually.”

She peeks between her fingers. “It was?”

“Sure.” He squeezes into the tub and places her on his lap. “It’s a kink. Nothing wrong with kinks. It’s not like we can actually… you know.”

“Uh huh.” She settles on him. “I don’t actually want kids. Not for a good long while, anyway. I just think… you know. The fantasy is sexy. In a caveman way.”

“Perks of dating a human, I guess.”

“Mmhmm.” She figure-eights her hips against him. “One of a few.”

The water level climbs up around their legs. There’s a little diamond pattern on his hips from all the friction against her fishnets.

“Can I tell you when I think I started falling in love with you?” She plays with his chest hair. “And don’t think this is me being a ghoul, okay? But it was that kid. Whose life you saved. I started having these fantasies about you after that night. And not because you saved his life. I mean, obviously that was extremely heroic. But when you touched me, and told me what to do. With that firm voice. With that confidence. I know that’s weird.”

“It’s a little weird.”

“I knowww.” She splashes him. “I just… most of my life is making all these decisions, you know? I guess that’s everyone. But I’ve got all this clan stuff, and with the tattooing I set my own hours and find my own clients. And Legendary is good, and it’s what I want to do with my life, but in the Shed I’m making all these calls about the music and being a leader and trying to be fair and authoritative without being authoritarian and I just have to hold on so tight to everything. And that was all before the, um.”

“You don’t have to say.” Evan’s determined to keep Thekla from dwelling on Sion’s endeavor.

“But with you guys, there’s this letting go and knowing you’ll catch me. Being helpless but taken care of. Safe. It’s how I imagine really religious people feel.”

“So what you’re saying is me and Kell are gods.”

“Okay now I think I’ve made you too confident,” she giggles, and squeezes his bicep. “You don’t need to be an alpha, you know? I love my soft boyfriend. I love how caring you are. But it’s been so nice, seeing you get strong and healthy and more self-assured. I want you to see yourself like I see you.”

“Well.” He scoops up some water and cascades it into her hair. “I wouldn’t mind doing that again sometimes.”

“Don’t tempt me.” She lays her head on his chest. “Or I’m gonna start stealing your shit every day.”

“Hey Thekla?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“What does ssairavika ansaia mean?”

“Can I, um.” Thekla bites her lip. “Can I do a rain check on that question?”

A motorized beep from the main room as the door opens. “Yoooo,” comes Kell’s voice. “Where are my babes at?”

“In here,” Thekla calls.

Kell appears in the bathroom doorway. “Bro, what the fuck did you do to the pillows?”

“That was Thek,” Evan says.

“Hey bitch.” Thekla holds a hand out. “Pay up.”

“Pay up?!” Kell shakes her head. “Man, shame on you, Evan. Taking jobs from hardworking dommes.”

“She left me no alternative,” Evan says.

“That’s right. And he was wonderful.” Thekla sticks her tongue out at Kell. “Kellax is sore cause she bet 10 bucks I couldn’t get you to go beast mode on me.”

Kell sits on the lip of the tub. “Was that bag of chips on the lawn outside part of this?”

“Oh, shit, that’s right.” Evan sloshes upright. “Kell, you gotta try these things. They’re these Canadian things—”

“Damn, Ev, siddown.” Kell laughs. “You’re about to get out of a tub with our buck-naked girlfriend to go get some potato chips.”

“They’re really fucking good, I swear,” he protests.

“I’ll go grab ‘em. You’re busy.” Kell braces herself on the far wall as she leans down to kiss Thekla. The goblin puts her drippy arms around Kell’s neck and keeps her there for a while. Evan watches his girlfriends make out. A bone-deep sense of harmony with the universe suffuses him.

“How we feeling, baby?” Kell asks when Thekla finally lets her break away.

“Better.” Thekla settles back into Evan’s lap. “God. So much better.”

Evan remembers what he told Kell. She likes control. He gives the orc a knowing glance. Kell catches it, winks back.

“I’m gonna put this right here.” She fishes a ten out of her pocket and puts it on the sink. “And then I’m gonna get those chips.” She heads for the door. “And then I’m gonna eat them all, to make up for you leaving your drummer out of this one.”

“Don’t you dare,” Evan yells.