Fic: Of Performances, And The People Who Watch Them
William doesn’t quite remember when Grelle had first expressed an interest in going out to a nightclub, but he does remember the actual experience with blinding clarity. The club she’d chosen (one that had been recommended by Knox, and that certainly explained a lot) was packed with sweating bodies writhing against each other to overly loud music on the dance floor from the moment they’d come through the door. Which Ronald had flirted his way though free-of-charge, but that was besides the point. The point was that not long after they’d arrived, Grelle had shouted into his ear that she wanted to join the sea of people before her, and she mistook his subsequent nod as an echo of her own desire and gleefully dragged him out onto the dance floor. Afterwards, he’d asked her just how in hell was what they’d just done considered dancing?
Needless to say, the clubbing had rather become a constant in their lives, although he had to admit that he liked Friday night dinner much better. And it wasn’t that William didn’t enjoy spending time with his wife or want to make her happy with every bone in his body, but…well. He simply preferred to watch her rather than participate most of the time. Honestly, was that so horrible?
Knox often reminded him that she also enjoyed traipsing around like a maniac with her modified-legally-modified, now that he’d convinced her to fill out the paperwork-Death Scythe, so going to a club every once and a while really shouldn’t be all that bad in comparison. It practically killed him to agree.
So the nightclub had wedged itself rather firmly into his life, much to the delight of his wife and their half-blonde co-worker. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Grelle had noticed the floor-to-ceiling round metal shafts in one corner of the room a few months ago. Her first reaction was wide eyes and a slightly-open mouth, which quickly gave way to her grinning like a madwoman. She’d slid around him and snaked her way through the crowd to get to Ronald, who was schmoozing some poor girl at the bar. Will had followed her, not wanting to look like a bloody fool just standing there by himself, and heard most of the conversation.
“-I think it is, Ronnie?”
“Hell yeah! Why?” There was a brief pause, during which William was very glad he couldn’t see his wife’s face, followed by a high-pitched, “Holy shit, Sutcliffe, do it!”
Grelle had glanced over at him, still smiling wickedly, and replied, “Oh, I plan to. Just not tonight.”
She did the following weekend, however, and from that day forward, the godforsaken dance poles had become a permanent fixture in their evening as well.
* * *
“Oh, that was so much fun, Will, dear. I just love this place to death~!” Grelle says, wrapping her hands around his upper arm and leaning into his shoulder. He opens the door with his free hand and leads her into the cool air outside. The thumping of the music is muted by the heavy door, and the relatively sudden silence rings in his ears somewhat. He’s come to tolerate what passes for music in this environment, although he would like to convince his wife not to sing it under her breath while she filed her paperwork, but he’s always glad when the synthesizers and drum machines are drowned out by other sounds. Grelle’s sweet voice and silvery-light laughter are always pleasing alternatives.
“...don't make a scene in the parking lot, Grelle.” He knows it must sound like a terribly rude thing to say, but he’s never been much of one for public displays of affection, to his wife’s constant and loudly-expressed dismay, and it’s either be a bit brusque or blush until his ears burn off. His reputation opts for the former, naturally.
He hears one, two clicks of her heels before she responds with a pout. “Will, dear, this is hardly a ‘scene’. Now, I'll grant you, the incident with the cherry bomb and the drag queen was a scene, but that wasn't my fault.”
He reaches up to adjust his glasses. “Honestly, must you keep bringing that up? And yes, I believe that was very much your fault.”
His wife sighs. “Fine, fine, where did you put the car keys?” She reaches into the front pocket of his jeans with little ceremony and fishes them out, clicking the little grey unlock button with a red-painted thumb nail. Her steps slow a little and she seems to come to a decision rather quickly. She presses the keys into his hand somewhat clumsily. “Here, you drive.”
He shakes his head and opens the car door for her, saying, “I suppose I should be grateful you aren’t demanding to.” As much as he might love his wife with everything in his immortal being, she wasn’t exactly the world’s safest driver even when she was stark sober. Tonight’s beverages had thankfully been limited to a Flaming Dr. Pepper and a shot of tequila, complete with a lime wedge, but nonetheless he was glad she handed over the keys to her precious Firebird so willingly.
“I wouldn't let anyone drive this car if I didn't trust them. Even if it's me.” She takes a step between him and the passenger’s seat, and before he knows it, she’s twirling around and leaning up to steal a kiss while he’s isn’t suspecting it.
And, well, can he really be blamed for kissing her back? William belatedly thinks to glance around to make sure no one is looking at them. “Some days, I think you love this car more than you do your own husband.”
He walks around to the other side of the car and quickly gets in. The engine starts with a satisfying growl that he shouldn’t be so satisfied to hear. Out of the corner of his eye, he see Grelle reach for her seatbelt, pause, and reach for it again. She fastens it around herself, and William knows she only does it because she knows he’ll insist anyway if she doesn’t. It’s one of the only things he’s totally adamant about-even the best of human drivers only have human reflexes and reaction times, and at this time of night said reaction times were probably slowed by an overconsumption of alcohol.
She spreads her fingers over the dashboard lovingly and hums. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her lean down to rest her head on the dash, almost nuzzling it, and she looks over at him. “William, dear?”
“Yes, love?” he asks, buckling his own seatbelt. “Could you try not to fall asleep on the dash please?”
Her eyes never leave him as she sits up rather reluctantly and leans back into her seat. “I love you,” she murmurs, reaching over and laying her hand on his shoulder.
William reaches up and covers her hand with his. “Yes, well, I…” and he can feel his face heating up because, even though it shouldn’t be so hard after so long, it still is, and so he settles for a whispered, “I love you, too.”
Grelle giggles and drops her hand back to her side. “Ah, I’m tired of this place,” she confesses with a contented little sigh. “Take us home, sweetheart.”
He pulls back on the gearshift and the car rolls forward smoothly. He notices how lonely Grelle’s hand looks, just resting there on her leg, and feels an odd compulsion to lace his fingers through hers. So he does. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that.”
She lets out a laugh. “Oh, don't even try to pretend you don't like it, Will. I could see the way you were looking at me….”
“It’s not your…performance that I dislike.” And no, it wasn’t, would never be, because he loved to watch her, no matter what she might be doing. “It’s knowing other people are watching you.” He grips the steering wheel a little tighter. “Other men.”
She makes a muted noise and glances at him again. “Oh, William,” she breathes excitedly, putting her hand over her mouth. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“Of course not,” he says.
She wiggles happily in her seat, biting her lip and giggling. “You are! Oh, I love it when you get all protective~”
“I am not jealous,” he contradicts. “I simply don’t understand the appeal of doing…that…in front of complete strangers.” He didn’t really understand the appeal of doing it at all, but he’d known Grelle long enough to recognize a lost cause when he saw one.
She sobers a little and responds, “Well, at the core, I am an actress, and one performance is no different from another. But really…” She squeezes his hand gently, meaningfully, and runs her thumb over his, “knowing that they're all watching me, and the only set of eyes I really care about is yours, well…I rather like it.”
“‘One performance is no-’” He can’t help but to voice his skepticism. “I beg to differ, darling. Some performances are better suited to a more…private venue.”
She goes quiet for a moment as she considers what he’s just said. “We don’t quite have the equipment for that at home…yet.” She smiles brightly at him. “I’d be happy to dance for you anytime you like, though.”
His brow furrows as he realizes what he just implied. “Grelle, that’s not at all what I…” He can’t finish his rebuff, though, because his mind forms the image of its own volition. And he can’t say that doesn’t interest him just a bit. “Well. I suppose if it would make you happy. At least there would be no wandering eyes to fend off.”
“Of course, dear,” she giggles. “Of course.”
He glances over at her as he stops at a traffic light. He knows that look she’s got in her eyes, the one that tells him she already planning things in her mind, and he dreads it just a little. “Would it be too much to ask that you don't reconstruct the entire bedroom to suit whatever ideas you may have? I'd like to have some semblance of normality left in our house.”
Patting his shoulder reassuringly, she says, “I wasn’t planning anything too elaborate. But really, normal can be so boring.”
He smiles despite himself and shakes his head. Grelle could be caught in the middle of a hurricane and still be bored to tears. “Normal can be quite a welcome change when one is married to you, Grelle.” His palm feels cold as he disentangles their hands, but it’s worth it when he runs his fingers through her hair fondly. “Not that I would ever want to change that.”
Grelle turns her head to the side quickly, but he still catches the beginning of her blush. “I'm the luckiest girl in the world,” she murmurs. She lays her head back and sighs a little. “Are we home yet, Will? These shoes are starting to hurt.”
“Almost there.” He’s enjoying the feel of his wife’s hair beneath his palm much too much, and he hopes she doesn’t mind it. He doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon. “And if you’ll recall, I did warn you against wearing those out tonight. Take them off for now, if you want. There’s no reason to keep wearing them if they’re hurting your feet.”
She nestles into his hand (almost like a kitten, but he resolutely squashes that thought before it can make itself any more intrusive) before leaning down and unbuckling her shoes. They’re red, naturally, and easily the highest pair of stilettos she owns. It’s always amazed him how she can keep from falling flat on her face while she walks in them, let alone how she can dance in them. He’d asked her once why she felt the need to wear shoes like that, when they were very obviously painful to wear. Her reply had been that a woman should be willing do almost anything for the man she loved, and besides, didn’t those heels make her ass look just magnificent, William?
“Aaah, that’s better,” she says, interrupting his train of thought. It’s probably a good thing, considering where he knew it would most likely end. She flips down the sun visor and looks at herself in the mirror, groaning quietly. “I should really wash all this makeup off once we get home. It's amazing how such perfection can turn all sticky and uncomfortable by the end of the night.”
He continues drawing nonsensical patterns on her scalp. “My pillow case and nightshirt thank you in advance.”
“Hmm, how did I ever deserve you?” she asks, laughing softly. “Honestly, why can't you be like this when we're out and about?”
William chuckles lightly. “Some performances are better suited for a more private venue, remember?”
“Oh, Will,” she sighs, still laughing under her breath. “You're so traditional. Such a gentleman.” She lays her head back on the headrest and closes her eyes. His hand slips down to rest on the back of her neck for a moment before he decides to reach for her hand once again. Her fingers twist into his in an manner that shouldn’t be so fascinating but is. “Do tell me when we're home, darling.”
There are still another dozen blocks or so left on the drive, and it gives William just enough time to be alone with his thoughts. If someone had told him all those years ago that he would not only fall in love with, but eventually marry, that obnoxiously loud-mouthed, redheaded classmate of his, he would have asked after that person’s mental health. Even back in the time of Victoria, when Sebastian and Ciel had first entered their lives, he hadn’t understood why he felt such animosity towards that particular demon. They were all vile scum, true, but this one was for whatever reason far more revolting to him than the rest. He had met worse demons, demons with more power and more tricks who didn’t care in the slightest if they followed the rules that supposedly governed them Below. But this demon, this one calling himself Sebastian Michaelis-he was still somehow different than his brethren.
Nearly a century later, Grelle had pointed out that, for a time, Sebastian had been the object of her (albeit vehemently rejected) affection.
As he flips on his signal light and turns into the driveway, he’s almost completely certain that he’s never been so happy to see the place they are currently calling home. He brings the car to a halt and parks, reaching his hand over to stroke his wife’s hair once more. “You haven't fallen asleep yet, have you? I'm not sure I could carry you up the stairs as dead weight, love.”
Grelle lets out a snort of laughter. “Heavens no, dear,” she says, picking up her shoes and opening the car door. “Ah, that was fun~ I've said that already, haven't I?”
“Yes, you have,” he responds, following suit and walking towards her. “Surely you didn't have that many drinks tonight.”
He’s only teasing, though, and she knows it. “Oh, never, darling,” she says, wrapping her hand around his arm. “I can't drink and dance, that would be dreadful. Besides, they're god-awfully expensive.”
His hand hesitates in his pocket, where he had been trying to locate his house keys, and he can only shake his head at her as he unlocks the front door. “As opposed to the free liquor you and Knox pinch from Sebastian's cabinets?”
She giggles and walks inside, shutting the door behind them. “That's different, sweetheart. For one, I'm not dancing, then. For two, I'm not outside.” She turns on her heels and wraps her arms around his neck. “There are some performances I'll only show a few people.”
She’s so close that he can’t help but let his hands slide low down her back. “Of course, of course,” he teases. “But if you don’t mind my asking exactly who constitutes this alleged ‘few people’?”
She glances to the side rather coyly, slipping away from him and taking his hand in hers. “Well, that depends on the performance.” She leads him further into the house, and if he had to make an educated guess, he’d say she was heading for their bedroom. “If it's the ‘Grelle is rather drunk’ performance, I only show it to friends: you, Ronald, the star-crossed lovers, and the blonde. If it's the ‘Grelle is having too much fun at work again’ performance, that's just you and Ronnie.” She pushes the bedroom door open with her foot and hums softly. “But if it's the ‘Grelle loves her husband so much she could just die’ performance...that one is just for you.”
“I see,” he replies, raising his eyebrows in mock surprise. He turns and shuts the bedroom door quietly behind them. “I don’t suppose I might request a reenactment of that last one, then? I don’t quite remember how it ends…”
“I suppose I could arranged a repeat performance,” she says, laughing lightly into his shoulder. She makes a show of dropping her shoes on the floor behind him, like the actress he will sometimes grudgingly admit she is, and takes his face between her hands. “A private showing, if you will.”
She leans up to kiss him, and he responds rather appreciatively; Grelle’s lips are always very soft. He smiles at her slightly and sighs, “What have I done to deserve such generosity from a renowned actress like yourself, I wonder?”
“I’m flattered, darling,” she responds, a faint pink rising up in her cheeks. She has this insane notion that her blushes clash with her hair, and so she hides it by ducking her head and making short work of the buttons on his shirt. “But really, the question is how I came to capture the attention of such a devoted audience.”
As much as he loves the light atmosphere they’ve created with the banter, he shrugs out of his shirt and answers quite seriously, “You saved me and my glasses from a Cinematic Record. My devotion is the least I can do to repay you, I promise.”
He reaches out for the zipper of her dress, but she shoos his hands away and lays hers on either side of his face again. “I love you, William,” she states. She’s just looking at him, like she can’t believe he’s hers. He imagines he is wearing quite a similar expression at the moment. “I love you so very much.”
“I love you, too, Grelle, more than I could ever tell you,” he says, turning his head to kiss one of her palms. He laughs softly to himself and, glancing coyly out of the corner of his eyes, adds, “Shall I show you instead?”
She grins widely before leaning to kiss him. “Please do.”
“Where shall I begin, then?” he asks almost rhetorically. He rests his hands on her hips and gently pulls her flush to him. He presses his lips to the angle of her jaw. “Here, perhaps?”
She makes a quiet sound in the back of her throat and bends her neck towards the touch, running her nails lightly over the bare skin of his back. “That’s a start, yes…”
Her fingernails are a bit long, though certainly not the longest they’ve ever been, and while she usually files and repaints them every few days or so, she must have forgotten. It’s not painful, by any means, but it does sting a little and nearly irritates him. He’s not a glutton for punishment like his wife has sometimes been known to be. So he decides that fitting retribution would be to nonchalantly push her dress’s single strap to the side and leave a trail of kisses on her skin. Over her shoulder. Across her collarbone. Up her throat.
“There….” She pants a bit, and he can feel a tremble run through her body for half a second. If he were given to romantic turns of phrase, he would say that he could almost feel her knees going week. But he isn’t, so he won’t. Even though it would be an apt description.
He feels her hand creep down to unbutton his jeans, and he pulls away just a bit, fingers curling in the fabric at her sides and tugging her dress down just a bit. “As much as I love seeing you in this piece, Grelle,” he murmurs, “I believe it would look much better on the floor just now.”
“Oh, really?” she asks, licking her lips. She reaches up, takes hold of his shoulder, and pushes him relatively forcefully onto their bed. He steadies himself by putting his arms out behind him. “But you asked for a performance, didn’t you?”
“So I did,” he confirms. He rakes his eyes over her as she quickly unzips her dress and slides it down past her hips. It doesn’t surprise him that she’s wearing sheer stockings and a garter belt, but the pink thong does. It matches wonderfully, though.
She sighs dramatically and fiddles with purposeful ineffectiveness at one of the straps of her garter belt. “I always did have a bit of trouble with these,” she whines. She glances up at him with an puckish smile. “You wouldn’t mind a bit of…audience participation, would you?”
No, in fact, he wouldn’t, because it gives him an excuse to touch her. He unfastens the straps carefully and reaches behind her to undo the snaps holding the smooth fabric in place. “I don’t remember this one. Is it new?” he asks, bending his neck and pressing a kiss to her waist.
She shivers somewhat and gasps as the garter belt falls to the floor. “Maybe….” She smiles down at him. “Evidently I should wear them more often.”
“You’re current audience would appreciate that, yes.” He let his hands roam a little over her bare skin, sliding slowly up her sides and back down. He splays his fingers over her belly and skims them up, up, up until-
“Oh, do stop teasing me, William!” yelps his wife, taking a small step backwards and gripping his shoulders suddenly. “It’s hardly fair!”
Pulling her back to him, he leans forward to drop a kiss just below her navel and chuckles against her pale skin. “If anyone is doing the teasing, it certainly isn’t me. Aren’t you tonight’s performer, Grelle?”
She grips him tighter, her nails digging into his skin slightly. “…I suppose so, yes,” she pouts. She shoves him none-too-gently back onto his back, reaching down finish undoing his pants. It isn’t until he’s lying there and her fingers are so close that he realizes exactly how hard he is. And she’s teasing him, of course, taking her sweet time with all the damned buttons while he’s in agony-and whoever the hell had thought that a full-button fly was the best method of keeping on jeans had clearly never been in a position to hurriedly take them off. She glances up at him, a knowing grin plastered on her face, and says, “I hope you enjoy the show, darling.”
She slides her fingers under the top of his pants and underwear and starts to slowly tug them down. Slowly being the key word. The friction against him is driving him mad, as is the lack of enough friction, and so he moves her hands out of the way and pushes the offending articles down himself. His wife tugs them off his ankles, makes a show of wading them up, and tosses them over her shoulder playfully. He’s much too distracted to notice what happens to them after that.
Finally, he rouses himself enough to respond to her. “I have no doubt that I will, love.”
Grelle hums and plants herself on the bed, leaning over him a little with that wicked little look in her eyes. She presses hot, lingering kisses on his skin-his neck first, and then working her way down, her lips traverse his shoulder and his chest. She pointedly avoids his nipples (the tease!) and continues kissing until she reaches the very end of his breastbone. She’s been running her nails over his sides and smoothing her palms back down again the whole time, as if to soothe the four little tracks she left him. It doesn’t hurt, not really, and he’s too distracted by the other things she’s doing to him-and too busy making noises in the back of his throat that he will absolutely never admit sound suspiciously like whimpers-to care otherwise.
Somewhere along the line, William’s closed his eyes, and so he doesn’t notice when she sneaks her hand down toward his cock. She kisses his mouth again to divert his attention and takes his erection into her hand. “There we go,” she whispers, stroking him slowly, “shhhh, there we go.”
She continues her ministrations and her tender cooing for a span of time that seems to go on forever and simultaneously ends far too quickly for his tastes. It probably has to do with the fact that he can’t keep himself from pushing up into the circle of her fingers, or the fact that his noises are getting steadily louder. Clambering up to straddle his hips, she guides him to the outside of her entrance. He wonders briefly when she’d had the chance to remove her underwear, but as she murmurs a sultry, “Shall we, then?” and lowers herself onto him slowly, he ceases to care.
They both let out a groan, and if it were any other moment, they would have laughed at themselves. They were too caught up, too entranced by their shared pleasure, by the sensations of filling and being filled, to notice it now.
William slides his hands up, past her knees and over the soft skin of her thighs, and grips her waist. “Not wasting-nnnh!-any time, I see.”
She splays her hands across her chest and shakes her head. She gasps a little, trying to catch her breath already, and manages to choke out, “I can’t-not tonight, darling.”
After giving her a moment to adjust, he raises his hips to meet hers slowly. He’s trying to find a steady rhythm, something slow and gentle and romantic because he knows Grelle enjoys it, but meets with some difficulty in that his body seems to be doing as it pleases. He gives up for the moment and coaxes her torso down against him so that he can nibble at her collarbone again. She moans and tangles her fingers in his hair, grinding her hips against his. She mumbling nonsense, stringing his name together with some pleading and the occasional bit of swearing. He can’t say he’s not doing much the same thing.
He hopes that her performance has concluded for the evening, because he wants her on her back and apparently lacks the will to give voice to this desire. It’s probably stupid, but he really does prefer making love to her when she’s lying on her back. When he’s above her and he’s pressing her a little bit deeper into the mattress with every stroke. When she’s splayed out beneath him and he can watch her face as he takes her. He loves watching her, no matter what she might be doing, but she’s incredibly expressive during sex and he revels in it.
So he wraps an arm around her back and flips her over, bringing her knees up to hug his sides and settling deeper into her heat. She squeaks a little in surprise. “Grelle,” he pants, “darling, I won’t-I can’t-”
She moves with him, gyrating herself against him over and over and over, and lets out another moan. “I think I’m…William, I think-!”
Her legs are starting to shake against his sides, and he knows she won’t last much longer. He kisses her and speeds up the pace of his movements. “I know, love,” he grunts. He brings his hand up to cup her face and caresses her cheek with his thumb. “Look, Grelle-aanh!-look at me, darling.”
She locks eyes with him. She’s trying very hard to keep her eyes open, he can tell, trying so very hard to keep looking at him. “William, please, I-William-!” He presses inside her once, twice, a third time, and he sees it in her face, sees that she’s about to peak when her eyes clench shut and her body seizes up. A half-second later, she clenches and shudders around him, shattering into a thousand tiny little pieces in his arms.
His eye clamp shut too when he feels her body spasm, and he knows he’s not going to last much linger. He grunts her name and pumps into her body a couple more times before he feels his own orgasm coming. He buries himself into her and with a final shout of her name releases his warmth deep inside her.
When the world goes back to being composed of colors other than white, she smoothes her hands down his back and wheezes, “My, William. I’d say that was quite a performance on your part as well.”
He feels her kiss his forehead as he pants into the base of her throat. “Well, my leading lady deserves most of the credit. She can be quite inspiring when she sets her mind to it.”
“Oh, you,” she chuckles, running her fingers through his hair. “You never give yourself enough credit.” The end of her sentence is distorted by a yawn.
William withdraws from her and settles down next to her, holding her close to him. He allows himself a small smirk and replies, “I believe you gave me more than my fair share of praise a few moments ago, darling.”
She smiles back and cuddles into his chest. “D’you think so? Sometimes I think I can never give you enough…” She shivers a bit and belatedly remembers to pull the covers over them both.
He chuckles, kissing her again. “You may continue trying, if you feel the need. I certainly won’t stop you.”
She kisses him back and adds a few more-for good measure, he supposes she would say. “I love you, dear,” she whispers, her fingers drawing lightly over his chest. “I know I say it a lot, but I mean it.”
“I know you do,” he reassures, running a hand up and down her arm slowly. With a sigh, he props his forehead against hers and continues, “I probably don’t say it enough. I love you, Mrs. Spears. I really do.”
She attempts to giggle, but it’s more like a little rush of air coming from her nose. She’s exhausted, he can tell, an accumulation of the week’s work, the night’s dancing, and their intimacy. “Please, Will, you’re making me-” her jaw cracks wide open in another yawn, “-mm, blush.”
He smiles to himself but doesn’t respond. She relaxes a littler more in his arms and starts to drift off. As much as he would like to stay awake just a bit longer so he can watch her peaceful face, he’s rather exhausted himself and wants nothing more than to fall asleep. William can feel his eyelids getting heavier by the second, and right before he descends into unconsciousness, he consoles himself with the thought that he can watch her as much as he likes in the morning.
Needless to say, the clubbing had rather become a constant in their lives, although he had to admit that he liked Friday night dinner much better. And it wasn’t that William didn’t enjoy spending time with his wife or want to make her happy with every bone in his body, but…well. He simply preferred to watch her rather than participate most of the time. Honestly, was that so horrible?
Knox often reminded him that she also enjoyed traipsing around like a maniac with her modified-legally-modified, now that he’d convinced her to fill out the paperwork-Death Scythe, so going to a club every once and a while really shouldn’t be all that bad in comparison. It practically killed him to agree.
So the nightclub had wedged itself rather firmly into his life, much to the delight of his wife and their half-blonde co-worker. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Grelle had noticed the floor-to-ceiling round metal shafts in one corner of the room a few months ago. Her first reaction was wide eyes and a slightly-open mouth, which quickly gave way to her grinning like a madwoman. She’d slid around him and snaked her way through the crowd to get to Ronald, who was schmoozing some poor girl at the bar. Will had followed her, not wanting to look like a bloody fool just standing there by himself, and heard most of the conversation.
“-I think it is, Ronnie?”
“Hell yeah! Why?” There was a brief pause, during which William was very glad he couldn’t see his wife’s face, followed by a high-pitched, “Holy shit, Sutcliffe, do it!”
Grelle had glanced over at him, still smiling wickedly, and replied, “Oh, I plan to. Just not tonight.”
She did the following weekend, however, and from that day forward, the godforsaken dance poles had become a permanent fixture in their evening as well.
* * *
“Oh, that was so much fun, Will, dear. I just love this place to death~!” Grelle says, wrapping her hands around his upper arm and leaning into his shoulder. He opens the door with his free hand and leads her into the cool air outside. The thumping of the music is muted by the heavy door, and the relatively sudden silence rings in his ears somewhat. He’s come to tolerate what passes for music in this environment, although he would like to convince his wife not to sing it under her breath while she filed her paperwork, but he’s always glad when the synthesizers and drum machines are drowned out by other sounds. Grelle’s sweet voice and silvery-light laughter are always pleasing alternatives.
“...don't make a scene in the parking lot, Grelle.” He knows it must sound like a terribly rude thing to say, but he’s never been much of one for public displays of affection, to his wife’s constant and loudly-expressed dismay, and it’s either be a bit brusque or blush until his ears burn off. His reputation opts for the former, naturally.
He hears one, two clicks of her heels before she responds with a pout. “Will, dear, this is hardly a ‘scene’. Now, I'll grant you, the incident with the cherry bomb and the drag queen was a scene, but that wasn't my fault.”
He reaches up to adjust his glasses. “Honestly, must you keep bringing that up? And yes, I believe that was very much your fault.”
His wife sighs. “Fine, fine, where did you put the car keys?” She reaches into the front pocket of his jeans with little ceremony and fishes them out, clicking the little grey unlock button with a red-painted thumb nail. Her steps slow a little and she seems to come to a decision rather quickly. She presses the keys into his hand somewhat clumsily. “Here, you drive.”
He shakes his head and opens the car door for her, saying, “I suppose I should be grateful you aren’t demanding to.” As much as he might love his wife with everything in his immortal being, she wasn’t exactly the world’s safest driver even when she was stark sober. Tonight’s beverages had thankfully been limited to a Flaming Dr. Pepper and a shot of tequila, complete with a lime wedge, but nonetheless he was glad she handed over the keys to her precious Firebird so willingly.
“I wouldn't let anyone drive this car if I didn't trust them. Even if it's me.” She takes a step between him and the passenger’s seat, and before he knows it, she’s twirling around and leaning up to steal a kiss while he’s isn’t suspecting it.
And, well, can he really be blamed for kissing her back? William belatedly thinks to glance around to make sure no one is looking at them. “Some days, I think you love this car more than you do your own husband.”
He walks around to the other side of the car and quickly gets in. The engine starts with a satisfying growl that he shouldn’t be so satisfied to hear. Out of the corner of his eye, he see Grelle reach for her seatbelt, pause, and reach for it again. She fastens it around herself, and William knows she only does it because she knows he’ll insist anyway if she doesn’t. It’s one of the only things he’s totally adamant about-even the best of human drivers only have human reflexes and reaction times, and at this time of night said reaction times were probably slowed by an overconsumption of alcohol.
She spreads her fingers over the dashboard lovingly and hums. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her lean down to rest her head on the dash, almost nuzzling it, and she looks over at him. “William, dear?”
“Yes, love?” he asks, buckling his own seatbelt. “Could you try not to fall asleep on the dash please?”
Her eyes never leave him as she sits up rather reluctantly and leans back into her seat. “I love you,” she murmurs, reaching over and laying her hand on his shoulder.
William reaches up and covers her hand with his. “Yes, well, I…” and he can feel his face heating up because, even though it shouldn’t be so hard after so long, it still is, and so he settles for a whispered, “I love you, too.”
Grelle giggles and drops her hand back to her side. “Ah, I’m tired of this place,” she confesses with a contented little sigh. “Take us home, sweetheart.”
He pulls back on the gearshift and the car rolls forward smoothly. He notices how lonely Grelle’s hand looks, just resting there on her leg, and feels an odd compulsion to lace his fingers through hers. So he does. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that.”
She lets out a laugh. “Oh, don't even try to pretend you don't like it, Will. I could see the way you were looking at me….”
“It’s not your…performance that I dislike.” And no, it wasn’t, would never be, because he loved to watch her, no matter what she might be doing. “It’s knowing other people are watching you.” He grips the steering wheel a little tighter. “Other men.”
She makes a muted noise and glances at him again. “Oh, William,” she breathes excitedly, putting her hand over her mouth. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“Of course not,” he says.
She wiggles happily in her seat, biting her lip and giggling. “You are! Oh, I love it when you get all protective~”
“I am not jealous,” he contradicts. “I simply don’t understand the appeal of doing…that…in front of complete strangers.” He didn’t really understand the appeal of doing it at all, but he’d known Grelle long enough to recognize a lost cause when he saw one.
She sobers a little and responds, “Well, at the core, I am an actress, and one performance is no different from another. But really…” She squeezes his hand gently, meaningfully, and runs her thumb over his, “knowing that they're all watching me, and the only set of eyes I really care about is yours, well…I rather like it.”
“‘One performance is no-’” He can’t help but to voice his skepticism. “I beg to differ, darling. Some performances are better suited to a more…private venue.”
She goes quiet for a moment as she considers what he’s just said. “We don’t quite have the equipment for that at home…yet.” She smiles brightly at him. “I’d be happy to dance for you anytime you like, though.”
His brow furrows as he realizes what he just implied. “Grelle, that’s not at all what I…” He can’t finish his rebuff, though, because his mind forms the image of its own volition. And he can’t say that doesn’t interest him just a bit. “Well. I suppose if it would make you happy. At least there would be no wandering eyes to fend off.”
“Of course, dear,” she giggles. “Of course.”
He glances over at her as he stops at a traffic light. He knows that look she’s got in her eyes, the one that tells him she already planning things in her mind, and he dreads it just a little. “Would it be too much to ask that you don't reconstruct the entire bedroom to suit whatever ideas you may have? I'd like to have some semblance of normality left in our house.”
Patting his shoulder reassuringly, she says, “I wasn’t planning anything too elaborate. But really, normal can be so boring.”
He smiles despite himself and shakes his head. Grelle could be caught in the middle of a hurricane and still be bored to tears. “Normal can be quite a welcome change when one is married to you, Grelle.” His palm feels cold as he disentangles their hands, but it’s worth it when he runs his fingers through her hair fondly. “Not that I would ever want to change that.”
Grelle turns her head to the side quickly, but he still catches the beginning of her blush. “I'm the luckiest girl in the world,” she murmurs. She lays her head back and sighs a little. “Are we home yet, Will? These shoes are starting to hurt.”
“Almost there.” He’s enjoying the feel of his wife’s hair beneath his palm much too much, and he hopes she doesn’t mind it. He doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon. “And if you’ll recall, I did warn you against wearing those out tonight. Take them off for now, if you want. There’s no reason to keep wearing them if they’re hurting your feet.”
She nestles into his hand (almost like a kitten, but he resolutely squashes that thought before it can make itself any more intrusive) before leaning down and unbuckling her shoes. They’re red, naturally, and easily the highest pair of stilettos she owns. It’s always amazed him how she can keep from falling flat on her face while she walks in them, let alone how she can dance in them. He’d asked her once why she felt the need to wear shoes like that, when they were very obviously painful to wear. Her reply had been that a woman should be willing do almost anything for the man she loved, and besides, didn’t those heels make her ass look just magnificent, William?
“Aaah, that’s better,” she says, interrupting his train of thought. It’s probably a good thing, considering where he knew it would most likely end. She flips down the sun visor and looks at herself in the mirror, groaning quietly. “I should really wash all this makeup off once we get home. It's amazing how such perfection can turn all sticky and uncomfortable by the end of the night.”
He continues drawing nonsensical patterns on her scalp. “My pillow case and nightshirt thank you in advance.”
“Hmm, how did I ever deserve you?” she asks, laughing softly. “Honestly, why can't you be like this when we're out and about?”
William chuckles lightly. “Some performances are better suited for a more private venue, remember?”
“Oh, Will,” she sighs, still laughing under her breath. “You're so traditional. Such a gentleman.” She lays her head back on the headrest and closes her eyes. His hand slips down to rest on the back of her neck for a moment before he decides to reach for her hand once again. Her fingers twist into his in an manner that shouldn’t be so fascinating but is. “Do tell me when we're home, darling.”
There are still another dozen blocks or so left on the drive, and it gives William just enough time to be alone with his thoughts. If someone had told him all those years ago that he would not only fall in love with, but eventually marry, that obnoxiously loud-mouthed, redheaded classmate of his, he would have asked after that person’s mental health. Even back in the time of Victoria, when Sebastian and Ciel had first entered their lives, he hadn’t understood why he felt such animosity towards that particular demon. They were all vile scum, true, but this one was for whatever reason far more revolting to him than the rest. He had met worse demons, demons with more power and more tricks who didn’t care in the slightest if they followed the rules that supposedly governed them Below. But this demon, this one calling himself Sebastian Michaelis-he was still somehow different than his brethren.
Nearly a century later, Grelle had pointed out that, for a time, Sebastian had been the object of her (albeit vehemently rejected) affection.
As he flips on his signal light and turns into the driveway, he’s almost completely certain that he’s never been so happy to see the place they are currently calling home. He brings the car to a halt and parks, reaching his hand over to stroke his wife’s hair once more. “You haven't fallen asleep yet, have you? I'm not sure I could carry you up the stairs as dead weight, love.”
Grelle lets out a snort of laughter. “Heavens no, dear,” she says, picking up her shoes and opening the car door. “Ah, that was fun~ I've said that already, haven't I?”
“Yes, you have,” he responds, following suit and walking towards her. “Surely you didn't have that many drinks tonight.”
He’s only teasing, though, and she knows it. “Oh, never, darling,” she says, wrapping her hand around his arm. “I can't drink and dance, that would be dreadful. Besides, they're god-awfully expensive.”
His hand hesitates in his pocket, where he had been trying to locate his house keys, and he can only shake his head at her as he unlocks the front door. “As opposed to the free liquor you and Knox pinch from Sebastian's cabinets?”
She giggles and walks inside, shutting the door behind them. “That's different, sweetheart. For one, I'm not dancing, then. For two, I'm not outside.” She turns on her heels and wraps her arms around his neck. “There are some performances I'll only show a few people.”
She’s so close that he can’t help but let his hands slide low down her back. “Of course, of course,” he teases. “But if you don’t mind my asking exactly who constitutes this alleged ‘few people’?”
She glances to the side rather coyly, slipping away from him and taking his hand in hers. “Well, that depends on the performance.” She leads him further into the house, and if he had to make an educated guess, he’d say she was heading for their bedroom. “If it's the ‘Grelle is rather drunk’ performance, I only show it to friends: you, Ronald, the star-crossed lovers, and the blonde. If it's the ‘Grelle is having too much fun at work again’ performance, that's just you and Ronnie.” She pushes the bedroom door open with her foot and hums softly. “But if it's the ‘Grelle loves her husband so much she could just die’ performance...that one is just for you.”
“I see,” he replies, raising his eyebrows in mock surprise. He turns and shuts the bedroom door quietly behind them. “I don’t suppose I might request a reenactment of that last one, then? I don’t quite remember how it ends…”
“I suppose I could arranged a repeat performance,” she says, laughing lightly into his shoulder. She makes a show of dropping her shoes on the floor behind him, like the actress he will sometimes grudgingly admit she is, and takes his face between her hands. “A private showing, if you will.”
She leans up to kiss him, and he responds rather appreciatively; Grelle’s lips are always very soft. He smiles at her slightly and sighs, “What have I done to deserve such generosity from a renowned actress like yourself, I wonder?”
“I’m flattered, darling,” she responds, a faint pink rising up in her cheeks. She has this insane notion that her blushes clash with her hair, and so she hides it by ducking her head and making short work of the buttons on his shirt. “But really, the question is how I came to capture the attention of such a devoted audience.”
As much as he loves the light atmosphere they’ve created with the banter, he shrugs out of his shirt and answers quite seriously, “You saved me and my glasses from a Cinematic Record. My devotion is the least I can do to repay you, I promise.”
He reaches out for the zipper of her dress, but she shoos his hands away and lays hers on either side of his face again. “I love you, William,” she states. She’s just looking at him, like she can’t believe he’s hers. He imagines he is wearing quite a similar expression at the moment. “I love you so very much.”
“I love you, too, Grelle, more than I could ever tell you,” he says, turning his head to kiss one of her palms. He laughs softly to himself and, glancing coyly out of the corner of his eyes, adds, “Shall I show you instead?”
She grins widely before leaning to kiss him. “Please do.”
“Where shall I begin, then?” he asks almost rhetorically. He rests his hands on her hips and gently pulls her flush to him. He presses his lips to the angle of her jaw. “Here, perhaps?”
She makes a quiet sound in the back of her throat and bends her neck towards the touch, running her nails lightly over the bare skin of his back. “That’s a start, yes…”
Her fingernails are a bit long, though certainly not the longest they’ve ever been, and while she usually files and repaints them every few days or so, she must have forgotten. It’s not painful, by any means, but it does sting a little and nearly irritates him. He’s not a glutton for punishment like his wife has sometimes been known to be. So he decides that fitting retribution would be to nonchalantly push her dress’s single strap to the side and leave a trail of kisses on her skin. Over her shoulder. Across her collarbone. Up her throat.
“There….” She pants a bit, and he can feel a tremble run through her body for half a second. If he were given to romantic turns of phrase, he would say that he could almost feel her knees going week. But he isn’t, so he won’t. Even though it would be an apt description.
He feels her hand creep down to unbutton his jeans, and he pulls away just a bit, fingers curling in the fabric at her sides and tugging her dress down just a bit. “As much as I love seeing you in this piece, Grelle,” he murmurs, “I believe it would look much better on the floor just now.”
“Oh, really?” she asks, licking her lips. She reaches up, takes hold of his shoulder, and pushes him relatively forcefully onto their bed. He steadies himself by putting his arms out behind him. “But you asked for a performance, didn’t you?”
“So I did,” he confirms. He rakes his eyes over her as she quickly unzips her dress and slides it down past her hips. It doesn’t surprise him that she’s wearing sheer stockings and a garter belt, but the pink thong does. It matches wonderfully, though.
She sighs dramatically and fiddles with purposeful ineffectiveness at one of the straps of her garter belt. “I always did have a bit of trouble with these,” she whines. She glances up at him with an puckish smile. “You wouldn’t mind a bit of…audience participation, would you?”
No, in fact, he wouldn’t, because it gives him an excuse to touch her. He unfastens the straps carefully and reaches behind her to undo the snaps holding the smooth fabric in place. “I don’t remember this one. Is it new?” he asks, bending his neck and pressing a kiss to her waist.
She shivers somewhat and gasps as the garter belt falls to the floor. “Maybe….” She smiles down at him. “Evidently I should wear them more often.”
“You’re current audience would appreciate that, yes.” He let his hands roam a little over her bare skin, sliding slowly up her sides and back down. He splays his fingers over her belly and skims them up, up, up until-
“Oh, do stop teasing me, William!” yelps his wife, taking a small step backwards and gripping his shoulders suddenly. “It’s hardly fair!”
Pulling her back to him, he leans forward to drop a kiss just below her navel and chuckles against her pale skin. “If anyone is doing the teasing, it certainly isn’t me. Aren’t you tonight’s performer, Grelle?”
She grips him tighter, her nails digging into his skin slightly. “…I suppose so, yes,” she pouts. She shoves him none-too-gently back onto his back, reaching down finish undoing his pants. It isn’t until he’s lying there and her fingers are so close that he realizes exactly how hard he is. And she’s teasing him, of course, taking her sweet time with all the damned buttons while he’s in agony-and whoever the hell had thought that a full-button fly was the best method of keeping on jeans had clearly never been in a position to hurriedly take them off. She glances up at him, a knowing grin plastered on her face, and says, “I hope you enjoy the show, darling.”
She slides her fingers under the top of his pants and underwear and starts to slowly tug them down. Slowly being the key word. The friction against him is driving him mad, as is the lack of enough friction, and so he moves her hands out of the way and pushes the offending articles down himself. His wife tugs them off his ankles, makes a show of wading them up, and tosses them over her shoulder playfully. He’s much too distracted to notice what happens to them after that.
Finally, he rouses himself enough to respond to her. “I have no doubt that I will, love.”
Grelle hums and plants herself on the bed, leaning over him a little with that wicked little look in her eyes. She presses hot, lingering kisses on his skin-his neck first, and then working her way down, her lips traverse his shoulder and his chest. She pointedly avoids his nipples (the tease!) and continues kissing until she reaches the very end of his breastbone. She’s been running her nails over his sides and smoothing her palms back down again the whole time, as if to soothe the four little tracks she left him. It doesn’t hurt, not really, and he’s too distracted by the other things she’s doing to him-and too busy making noises in the back of his throat that he will absolutely never admit sound suspiciously like whimpers-to care otherwise.
Somewhere along the line, William’s closed his eyes, and so he doesn’t notice when she sneaks her hand down toward his cock. She kisses his mouth again to divert his attention and takes his erection into her hand. “There we go,” she whispers, stroking him slowly, “shhhh, there we go.”
She continues her ministrations and her tender cooing for a span of time that seems to go on forever and simultaneously ends far too quickly for his tastes. It probably has to do with the fact that he can’t keep himself from pushing up into the circle of her fingers, or the fact that his noises are getting steadily louder. Clambering up to straddle his hips, she guides him to the outside of her entrance. He wonders briefly when she’d had the chance to remove her underwear, but as she murmurs a sultry, “Shall we, then?” and lowers herself onto him slowly, he ceases to care.
They both let out a groan, and if it were any other moment, they would have laughed at themselves. They were too caught up, too entranced by their shared pleasure, by the sensations of filling and being filled, to notice it now.
William slides his hands up, past her knees and over the soft skin of her thighs, and grips her waist. “Not wasting-nnnh!-any time, I see.”
She splays her hands across her chest and shakes her head. She gasps a little, trying to catch her breath already, and manages to choke out, “I can’t-not tonight, darling.”
After giving her a moment to adjust, he raises his hips to meet hers slowly. He’s trying to find a steady rhythm, something slow and gentle and romantic because he knows Grelle enjoys it, but meets with some difficulty in that his body seems to be doing as it pleases. He gives up for the moment and coaxes her torso down against him so that he can nibble at her collarbone again. She moans and tangles her fingers in his hair, grinding her hips against his. She mumbling nonsense, stringing his name together with some pleading and the occasional bit of swearing. He can’t say he’s not doing much the same thing.
He hopes that her performance has concluded for the evening, because he wants her on her back and apparently lacks the will to give voice to this desire. It’s probably stupid, but he really does prefer making love to her when she’s lying on her back. When he’s above her and he’s pressing her a little bit deeper into the mattress with every stroke. When she’s splayed out beneath him and he can watch her face as he takes her. He loves watching her, no matter what she might be doing, but she’s incredibly expressive during sex and he revels in it.
So he wraps an arm around her back and flips her over, bringing her knees up to hug his sides and settling deeper into her heat. She squeaks a little in surprise. “Grelle,” he pants, “darling, I won’t-I can’t-”
She moves with him, gyrating herself against him over and over and over, and lets out another moan. “I think I’m…William, I think-!”
Her legs are starting to shake against his sides, and he knows she won’t last much longer. He kisses her and speeds up the pace of his movements. “I know, love,” he grunts. He brings his hand up to cup her face and caresses her cheek with his thumb. “Look, Grelle-aanh!-look at me, darling.”
She locks eyes with him. She’s trying very hard to keep her eyes open, he can tell, trying so very hard to keep looking at him. “William, please, I-William-!” He presses inside her once, twice, a third time, and he sees it in her face, sees that she’s about to peak when her eyes clench shut and her body seizes up. A half-second later, she clenches and shudders around him, shattering into a thousand tiny little pieces in his arms.
His eye clamp shut too when he feels her body spasm, and he knows he’s not going to last much linger. He grunts her name and pumps into her body a couple more times before he feels his own orgasm coming. He buries himself into her and with a final shout of her name releases his warmth deep inside her.
When the world goes back to being composed of colors other than white, she smoothes her hands down his back and wheezes, “My, William. I’d say that was quite a performance on your part as well.”
He feels her kiss his forehead as he pants into the base of her throat. “Well, my leading lady deserves most of the credit. She can be quite inspiring when she sets her mind to it.”
“Oh, you,” she chuckles, running her fingers through his hair. “You never give yourself enough credit.” The end of her sentence is distorted by a yawn.
William withdraws from her and settles down next to her, holding her close to him. He allows himself a small smirk and replies, “I believe you gave me more than my fair share of praise a few moments ago, darling.”
She smiles back and cuddles into his chest. “D’you think so? Sometimes I think I can never give you enough…” She shivers a bit and belatedly remembers to pull the covers over them both.
He chuckles, kissing her again. “You may continue trying, if you feel the need. I certainly won’t stop you.”
She kisses him back and adds a few more-for good measure, he supposes she would say. “I love you, dear,” she whispers, her fingers drawing lightly over his chest. “I know I say it a lot, but I mean it.”
“I know you do,” he reassures, running a hand up and down her arm slowly. With a sigh, he props his forehead against hers and continues, “I probably don’t say it enough. I love you, Mrs. Spears. I really do.”
She attempts to giggle, but it’s more like a little rush of air coming from her nose. She’s exhausted, he can tell, an accumulation of the week’s work, the night’s dancing, and their intimacy. “Please, Will, you’re making me-” her jaw cracks wide open in another yawn, “-mm, blush.”
He smiles to himself but doesn’t respond. She relaxes a littler more in his arms and starts to drift off. As much as he would like to stay awake just a bit longer so he can watch her peaceful face, he’s rather exhausted himself and wants nothing more than to fall asleep. William can feel his eyelids getting heavier by the second, and right before he descends into unconsciousness, he consoles himself with the thought that he can watch her as much as he likes in the morning.