Chapter 1: A Good Fuck
Katniss's POV
I tense as the tube of lipstick clatters to the wood floor at my feet. Muscles crackling with the sensation of being frozen, I listen to the sounds of the house. No one stirs. Good. Primrose is still asleep. And let's hope she stays that way at least until the morning. I do not want to think about what might happen if she wakes up and finds me gone.
Nothing was ever the same for my family after my father died in the mines. Sure, the livelihood of folks in the Seam is pretty shitty even if you don't have a broken household. But without my father, and his sure and steady demeanor, the rest of us fell apart. Mother never fully recovered emotionally from his death, passing away when I was 18. Since then, for the last eight years, I have been feeding and raising my baby sister, Primrose, on my own.
Though she isn't such a baby anymore, at 22. Ever since she mercifully escaped her last Reaping four years ago, the pressure has been on from the rest of the District for her to marry. She really should; with our mother's Merchant features, she is the beauty of the family. Taking a husband will help to ensure her financial security. Especially since she had the baby of Rory Hawthorne out of wedlock - a tiny infant that I know is starving. It's the future that's best for both of them, that's best for her, but not for me - I vowed even before I was a teenager that I would never marry, nor have children that would just be sent to the Hunger Games anyway. I have seen what love of the romantic kind can do to people. It takes and takes and takes and leaves you vulnerable. A vulnerable that I never want to be. The sooner Prim Toasts the bread with a good man, the better off we all will be.
Because I will be damned if she ever has to do what I must do tonight, in order to barely support herself.
After Mother died, we managed well enough. I had learned to hunt as a little girl from my father, so I took over the gathering of food, becoming the main breadwinner for the household. Unfortunately, a profession like mine is subject to the mercy of the seasons - or lack thereof.
And thanks to a particularly brutal winter, a profession like the one I am about to embark on is subject to the mercy of a man in bed.
Selling yourself is the last resort for anyone struggling financially in the Seam. And unfortunately, there is a decent crop of them. Thankfully (or unthankfully, depending on your point of view), there is a ready market for prostitution in District 12, the poorest district in Panem. Our Head Peacekeeper, Cray, runs a whoring ring out of his home in the Peacekeeper Barracks. I have seen many a desperate girl at his door late at night. He only takes one per evening for his nightly tryst. So you had better look pretty. Or better yet, have an advantage like mine: approaching him with a womanhood undefiled.
I slip over my head the blue dress that was once a Merchant heirloom of my mother. It was passed down to me, and I wore it every year I was eligible for the Reaping. It is probably the fanciest piece of clothing I own, and though the fabric is faded, I hope it will attract the attention of a drunken, horny old man tonight. Enough for me to swallow my pride and earn a few coins from a few moments of pure misery.
I check my reflection in the mirror one last time, doing up my hair in the single, signature braid that runs down my back. Taking a deep breath, I exit into the sticky, humid summer night.
The Peacekeeper Barracks is on the other side of the district, over the Seam-Town line. I rarely cross over, unless I have to make an important trade. Most of my bartering I am able to conduct in the Seam's technically illegal black market, the Hob. The separation of what might as well be two diametrically opposed worlds is pronounced enough: the houses become sturdier and do not look like they are pieced together with glue, spit and hope. The streets are cobblestone instead of dirt. If folks were normally out at this time of night, you would see fancier clothes. Aryan blonde hair and deep blue eyes.
I am still a good half a mile from the Barracks now, as I cross through the center of Town proper, just beyond the Justice Building. As I slip into a darkened alleyway to make use of a shortcut, the deserted backroad is suddenly illuminated by a house's harsh light. I freeze, cornered like the wild animal I encounter and bag on my hunts. I have been halted outside the back loading dock of the Bakery.
The Baker - an admittedly handsome man of my age, 26 - is standing in surprise on the loading dock, a sack of garbage in his hands. I must have interrupted his taking out of the thrash. The ashy blonde hair and those impossibly blue eyes... eyes as blue as a summer sky... match with a name in my brain: Peeta Mellark.
Peeta Mellark and I were schoolmates together, though we never spoke at all. We only interacted once and it was a good fifteen years ago. He has since inherited the Bakery from his father. His father who was shot dead in the street on a trumped-up treason charge. The mother beaten to death by a new Peacekeeper not yet broken in to Twelve's ways - a due that was more well-deserved. One brother Reaped and killed in the Hunger Games a good decade or more back. The other, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time during a mine explosion. Peeta lives alone, unmarried. Remembering this last point gives me an odd sort of relief - I have to admit he has always been a... handsome man.
And his handsome features now keep me suspended in time and space.
"Katniss?" He smiles, as if he is pleased to see me, and I want to glare at him. "What are you doing out here?" Then he takes in my rouged face and make-up, the blue dress, the high boots that are too tight for my feet. And - barely perceptible under the skirt - my mother's black garter, the one she wore on her wedding day and Toasting night to my father. I want to cry as it clicks into place for him. He knows. He's figured it out.
"Katniss... don't do this. Please don't go this way."
His choked voice, his likely fake concern that I don't merit, makes me see red and I stomp up to the loading dock to look him in the eye. "And why can't I? There's no water, Peeta! There are no ducks. Almost zero game. There's barely any meat. My sister, my sister's child, are close to death!"
"That doesn't mean you should lose your pride! Let me help you!" And he seems close to begging now.
I get right up in his face, my teeth bared as I hiss, "I don't want your help! There isn't any choice!"
He moves too quick for me.
A second too late, I feel Peeta's hands grip each side of my skull as he yanks me forward, mashing my lips to his in a heated kiss. I give a choked, strangled, confused squeak into his mouth, accidentally parting my lips for him so that his tongue slides oh so effortlessly into my esophagus, down my throat.
I should be pushing him away. But I doubt I would have the strength for it: my thin, skin-and-bones frame against Peeta's muscular build. Besides, a tiny warmth inexplicably bubbling in my chest is telling me that I don't want to push him away. I realize I have an opportunity here: frankly, anyone is better than Cray. Especially the kind, attractive Baker.
"Hmmmm? Mmmmmm..." I moan, fluttering my eyes closed as I wind my arms about Peeta's neck, kissing him in return. Encouraged by my acceptance of his kiss, Peeta's arms slide about my waist, his hands moving from where they had fallen into my brown curls to explore... lower regions. He boldly gropes my ass through my dress, feeling me up and the extra flesh there that woefully appeared as I matured into womanhood, despite how malnourished I often am. If there ever was a place for me to put on pounds, it wasn't there.
Peeta cups one arse cheek in his palm, and then the other. At one point, he gives my buttocks a SMACK! and I squeak against his pliant lips. Assertively, I raise my leg to his waist, hooking it about his torso. I have made my intentions clear: I want sex. For a price, of course, but we can discuss that later. He may take me, if he wishes.
I feel the muggy night air tickle my shamefully wet folds as Peeta fishes for my panties, nudging them down. I feel first one finger, and then another, slide into the slick opening of my cunt, stretching me open ever so slightly.
"Mmmmmm... Uhhhhhrrrrrr!" I grind into his hand, building up the friction between us as his digits start to stroke me. After a few moments...
"MMMMM!" I squeal, muffled as my walls clench around his fingers, spurting juice forth. Peeta's skull is thrashing around in perfect harmony with mine, as our mouths battle to gain the upper hand in our desperate kiss.
Suddenly... Ohhhhhhh...
His manliness swiftly enters me, without warning, threatening to cleave me in two as something deep inside me shatters, never to be repaired again. I have been conquered. Peeta's penis thrusts tenderly into me at first, and then gradually, he picks up the pace. I buck into his pelvis, matching him pound for pound, daring to climb his body like a tree and fold my legs about him.
"Grrrmmmmmmm... Mmmmmm... HMMMMM! UHMMMMMMM!" My moans grow louder and more pathetic with each passing coupling. Oh, how horrible it would be if someone should hear!
I wrench myself out of the kiss, coming up for air for the first time in who knows how long, and right then: "OH GOD!" He makes me orgasm all over again, and I am milked for a second time.
Peeta gracefully sets me down, and for a moment, I wonder if our frantic, sloppy love-making is over. But then, the Baker sinks to his knees at my feet, hikes up the hems of my blue skirt so that my most tender of places is exposed, if only momentarily, to the world.
Then his head dives between my legs, as he feasts on the apex of my thighs. He has taken me with his hands, with his cock, and now he is taking me with his mouth.
I clap a hand over my mouth to silence the startled cry. My jaw goes slack, my eyes rolling up into the back of my head. My other palm seizes Peeta at the base of his neck, holding him in place, guiding him deeper still to just the right spot that I like to touch myself with, in the dead of night. That only I have touched, until now...
"PEETMMMMMMMMM!" I shout his name into my hand, as for a remarkable third time, I cum hard on his face. Peeta's lips and tongue remain there for a few moments more, licking away all the errant juices until he has had his fill. And then he emerges.
Reaching behind him into the open doorway of the loading dock, the Baker suddenly hands me a fine piece of bread, no more than a day old. Adjusting myself, replacing my panties, I take the bread wordlessly. I did what I had set out to do: made love with a man for food and accepted no handouts.
So why do I still feel like it hasn't been enough?
The thought occurs to me: Peeta made love to me. He fucked me. I didn't pleasure him. I am just about to rectify this, tackle him and take his throbbing head between my lips and give him the blowjob of his life when -
My thighs tremble, wobble unsteadily, a thin sheen of blood coating the inside of each, making my skin slick. My core aches from having received so much attentions. My knees now buckle under me, as I swoon into a dead faint. I feel a pair of arms catch me, as the Baker scoops me up, bridal-style, the way he might if we had just had a Toasting and he had taken me as his wife.
The last thing I remember before I pass out is the approaching bright lights from the inside of the Bakery...
