"Are we gonna stop?" Michonne asked Rick as she rolled down the window of the little blue Toyota, the car they used to scout out possible locations for supplies. It was the middle of April and the sky was divided, clear and blue on the horizon but gray straight above. It was starting to sprinkle, but the day was warmer than it had been the past week and Michonne was enjoying the dewiness in the air.
"Anything you want." Rick's face lit up in response but he kept his eyes on the road. He could hear the excitement in her voice and he loved it. He liked it especially when she was excited about things he didn't quite understand. It made her even more rare and beautiful to him.
They were about to pass King's Landing Estates. Rick turned to enter the large walled columns and drove over the unhinged wrought iron gate. This place had been a hub for the affluent, situated in D.C.'s suburbs. Everything was overgrown now and a lot of the limestone surfaces that gleamed before, were now spattered with gore. But Michonne had developed a kind of filter for all the ugly. In her mind, the stately community was still breathtaking.
There was a house: 90786 Stone Castle Way- that she envisioned as hers and Rick's. He thought the house was nice but he really got the most pleasure just from watching Michonne enjoy being there. Michonne had collected houses all over. And Rick would placate her whenever she wanted to visit one. Michonne chose the house and Rick would choose which room to 'christen' first.
She always loved interiors, fabrics and wallpaper. Whenever they came this way she came to this particular house. She liked to pretend she was coming home from a business trip. She imagined that an underground artist lived there- that was her- with her husband, the distinguished and honorable Judge Richard Grimes.
Someone with an artistic lean definitely lived there. There was art work everywhere and the grand 2-story foyer of the home had floor to ceiling windows flanking the front door. The atrium inside displayed a trio of nine foot tall paintings, the scene of all three was a different view of a woodsy landscape. The trees standing, almost defiant, shrouded in a smoky haze. Though the feeling those images gave was very somber there was also a sense of hopefulness in them that Michonne like to sit and contemplate.
Rick's eyes were fixed on her as she walked up the curved dark wood staircase overlooking the marble floors. The house hadn't been ransacked by looters. It didn't appear that the owners were there when things turned. From the look of all the opulence, this probably was not the only home the resident owned, just as this wasn't the only home Michonne 'owned'.
As usual, she quietly scanned her surroundings, admiring the coolness of all the white in the décor and the simple elegance. The massive crystal chandelier, the alcoves in the walls displaying items of interest, the hand-carved double doors- all of it drew her in until they reached the California king in the middle of the enormous master bedroom. She loved the craftsmanship of the headboard. It must have been imported, from… Fiji she imagined (she always wanted to go). The wood was so exotic, engraved with an image of a sprawling tree. The bedposts were tall, twisted, crooked and knotted like vertical branches. "Whoever lived here loved their trees." She commented to Rick on their first visit.
With the ASZ becoming more self-sufficient, the need for supply runs was becoming less dire, so it had been about 2 months since they had come back here. Michonne and Rick had made love a bunch of times in this bed. She'd found the linen closet and gotten Rick help her make the bed so it was like a catalogue picture whenever they returned. With a running leap she jumped on the bed, landing on her stomach with a bounce.
"I keep telling you we should just bring the whole thing home." Rick said, hands in his pocket. He was shaking his head in amusement as he slowly walked over to her. He landed on top of her sharing all her delight for the bed, but for completely different reasons. The primary reason for him was, now, he was wrapped around her body like a swaddling cloth with his nose in the crook of her neck.
"We could never get this bed up the stairs of our place." She replied realistically. "Besides I like it in this room… in this house."
By now the rain had started to fall steadily. Behind the headboard was a wall of windows with a view to the trees. Thunder could be heard in the distance. "We can stay a couple hours, right?" Michonne asked and declared at the same time. "This is perfect cuddle weather."
The kiss on her cheek served as a 'yes' and they just laid there, tangled, that way for a few moments staring out into the deadness of the room. "I know you're sick of me," Michonne prefaced her next request, "but can you put on the tux?" She said twisting her neck to look back up at him.
In the audaciously large 'his' closet, there were lots of suits and dress shoes and ties, cuff links and watches hung up and displayed almost as ornaments. To her delight the clothes belonged to a man with a similar build as her dress up doll, Rick. She had made him try on suits for an hour once, mixing and matching ties and pocket squares, until he begged for mercy. She liked everything on him, but her favorite was the navy blue tuxedo with velvet lapels. The color of his eyes was amplified when he slid it on. His chiseled form could be imagined even through the heavier material. But Michonne didn't have to imagine. She knew full well what a blessed body Rick carried his soul in. She loved to dress him up only to undress him again.
He sighed, "Yes I will put on the tux. Anything for you." He groaned as he left the bed and went to obey her wishes.
"Cut out that 'anything for you' stuff." She fussed, throwing a pillow at his back as he walked away. She knew from his tone he was up to something. And Rick knew that tux would get him laid, so he only pretended to be moderately annoyed about playing dress up when in reality he would have put on a Barney suit if she'd asked him to.
"You have to dress up too, though." He offered a deal.
"Rick, you know I can barely fit anything in that closet. This lady, whoever she was, was tiny as hell." She complained.
Rick pulled off his shirt and gave her an eyeful of his impressive chest and abs, "Don't you mean 'Anything for you, baby.'"
"I'm glad you could read between the lines." Caught in his trap, she rolled her eyes, got up and walked into the 'hers' closet. She called back after him, "I might have to wear what I wore last time."
"No. I wanna see you in something different."
"Rick I can't fit…"
"Anything for you, Rick." He interrupted to feed her the words.
"Anything for you Rick." She repeated him in a mocking tone, holding up a dress to her body in front of a large framed mirror.
After a while, she found a violet and beige body con dress stretchy enough to get over her hips. She actually liked it a lot and she shrugged one shoulder as she turned sideways in the mirror and smiled, approving of her curves and imagining what Rick would say when she came out to model it for him. Trying to find shoes that would fit her size 7 foot was a waste of time since every shoe in the closet was a size 5, but Michonne was nothing if not resourceful.
"No high heels, babe." She shouted to Rick as she emerged from the dressing room. "But I found some pretty pink nail polish…" She held up two bottles so he could see, dangling them between her thumbs and forefingers, "You feel like painting my little piggies?"
"Oh, my god. Wow." Rick crowed when he saw her. The dress was slathered on her body and her breasts were practically spilling out the top. The dressing table in the middle of the room was obstructing the view of his Venus and he was drooling for a closer look. "C'mere."
He released the bowtie he'd been struggling with in the mirror when she came within arm's reach and snatched her up close to him. "You are… mmm." He kissed her instead of trying to find an adequate word to describe her and sat her up on the marble dressing island diving face-first into her fleshy cleavage. He pushed her backwards, making a clamor, knocking over the glass cologne bottles and trinket boxes behind her. She let out a half muted scream of laughter.
"Rick! Come on. Let me do this tie." She said pulling herself up with both ends of the black tie in her hands. She began crossing and looping, "I showed you too many times how to do this. Are you paying attention?"
"Michonne," he whispered nudging her nose with his, "if you're this close to me… if I have the choice to pay attention to those lips or how you're tying knots… the lips win every time."
She perfected the bow, combed her fingers through his hair to tame his long curls and ran her hands down his bearded cheeks and chin. Then she reared back to fully take in the gorgeousness of the man before her. "See? This is how I know that this ain't the end of the world."
"How?"
"End-of-the-world-men are not this fine." She said shaking her head with desire and tangling her fingers in the curls lying at his neck.
The sultry sound of her voice made Rick's stomach summersault. He pulled her closer to him, her legs on either side of him, "Ok. Let's take this stuff off now." He said impatiently, as though it was the only logical thing to do.
"Nope." She stopped him and pushed him back. "You wanted me to dress up too, remember. You gotta paint my nails to complete the outfit." She picked up the bottles of polish and read the names, asking, "Which one do you like… Sunset Fuscia or… mmmm… Cotton Candy? Haven't had cotton candy in so long…"
"Well, let's do Cotton Candy, then." He sat on a step stool behind him and took her foot in his hands. Michonne had a thing about her feet. She kept her nails trimmed and her heels soft. She loved for them to be in Rick's strong hands. He kissed each toe, looking up at her, while she shook the bottle of polish like a spray paint can. Then she smiled and handed it over to him. He started to polish, trying to keep his lines steady with the tiny brush. He was serious about his work because Michonne was serious about her toes.
"I miss pedicures too." She said wistfully.
"I give you pedicures all the time." He reminded her.
"I know, boo. But I mean a proper pedicure." She said with inflection. "My manicurist was this chick named Amy. She would have these dogs looking some kind of clean! She just had a natural talent for feet."
"That's a weird thing to be naturally talented at." He looked up for a second and noticed how her plump coffee-colored thighs were crowding each other right in front of him and he couldn't help but think about what lied between them. All they need is a little cream.
"You're naturally talented at some unconventional things too."
"Like what?" he cocked his brow.
"Like…" She sighed to think, "…blinking."
"Blinking?"
"Yeah." She nodded and smacked her lips. "You have the prettiest blink I've ever seen. You make those blue eyes disappear… and right when I think I'm gonna die without them, you open your eyes again. It's like a magic trick. Nobody can blink like you, daddy."
Rick adored the way she had with words but this was beyond everything. It broke into his thoughts about making love and swept them away as her cleverness engaged him. He wanted more.
"I'll have to put blinking on my resume." He joked.
"No resume needed. Your current position is permanent."
"My current position?" He asked suspiciously. "Currently, I'm under your foot like a slave…" Rick tested her quick wit.
"Never a slave. I'm looking down at a most dignified man… with the tux and everything." Michonne emoted, snaking her finger through the air at him indicating he was her total package.
Rick laughed. "Really?
"Yes. You're… like… the ground… that… gravity pulls me to. Like my own planet earth. Everything I need… You're underfoot because you're my own planet and my whole world." She said beaming pride, pleased with herself.
Second coat of Cotton Candy be damned, he had to kiss her. She reminded him to mind the wet polish as he stood between her legs. He placed his hands around her neck. He didn't apply pressure, just held on to her remembering she was real and really his. He could feel her pulse under his palm and feel her swallow under his thumb. The sensation of her throat opening to her warm wet mouth brought him up on the counter with her. He knocked everything onto the floor and laid her back with her head hanging off the edge. The thunder rolled as she closed her eyes, relishing the way he rushed her with uncontrollable need. He was on his way to hiking up the hem of her dress when Michonne interrupted.
"Hey, Rick." She said barely using a breath. "What's this?"
He raised his head and followed her eyes to what looked like an unusual separation of the floor and the wall, hidden beneath the clothes hanging on the lowest closet bar.
"Hmm." Rick wondered.
"You think it's another safe?" Michonne wondered too. They hopped down from the island, stepping over the mess they'd made on the floor. They had found a secure safe in this closet on their first walk-through of the house full of legal documents and jewelry, nothing useful.
"Could be another one." Rick responded as he moved the clothes out of the way. "The other one could have been a dummy safe. "He lifted the large floor tile and found a hinged door leading to a deep compartment. They looked at each other with narrowed eyes, impressed by the ingenuity. Rick tried to pull up the large duffle bag that was settled upright on its side. It was so heavy he needed Michonne's help to get it out.
The bag was big enough to fit a body in. They unzipped it. "So much for the artist and judge fantasy." Michonne said with tinge of disappointment.
"Could've been a crooked judge." Rick shrugged with a grin.
They started to remove the contents from the bag. Michonne set aside two big freezer bags of marijuana and an AR-15 with extra ammo. Then Rick began to pull out block after block of clean, newly minted bills wrapped in cellophane. When all the money was removed, Michonne reached in a final time,
"Glocks too." She announced, breaking Rick's count of the blocks.
"Good." He was happy with the find.
She examined two loaded 9 mm hand guns, cocking them and checking the slide of the chamber. She reached to put one in her waistband till she remembered she was wearing a dress. "How much is there, you think?"
"A lot. Different denominations, but nothing under a twenty." He answered turning a block in his hand to investigate. He grabbed an armful of money and walked it over to the bed. "Get the rest."
When they got it all to the bed, they chuckled at each other, both thinking the same thing. This would have been a windfall in their old lives but now, what was money? Michonne still loved the smell of it though and she sliced through the wrapper with her nail and pulled her thumb across the bills under her nose. "Let's make a fire… burn all it… And get high." She tossed a bag of the weed toward him.
Rick laughed out loud. He caught a glimpse of himself in the dresser mirror. "I feel like James Bond."
Michonne laughed too, "Yeah, you should. The tux, money, guns…"
"My own chocolate Pussy Galore…" He added with a wink.
"Oh my God, Rick." Michonne reacted with a rosy tone.
"What?"
"Your wink is even better than your blink."
He shook his head and cracked an affectionate smile in her direction. Then he was hit with an idea. "You know what I always wanted to do?"
The corner of her lips crooked cautiously as she tried to guess. "What?"
"What if we opened all this money… spread it out on the bed… and made love all over Benjamin Franklin's face.
"Much better idea than burning it." She conceded.
"We'll burn the money after." Rick said.
"If it doesn't spontaneously combust first." She said with mischief. "But first let's get high as fuck."
There were rolling papers and a lighter in the bags of weed and Rick, who had come out of that tuxedo jacket, was introduced to yet another thing Michonne did well. She held the papers delicately between her fingers and wet the edges seductively with her tongue. Rick was supposed to be rolling as well, but he found himself too distracted by the art Michonne was creating with paper and leaves. In the end, he pretended that he didn't know how and asked her to roll another just for a sequel.
Michonne repeated again as she took a hit, "These people really liked their trees." Rick laughed and began to choke on the pungent smoke, which made Michonne crack up as well.
They created a fog in the room and stretched out across the bed, blowing o's into each other's faces. They alternated their lips between smoke and kisses. By the time their heads got that swelling feeling, Rick was throwing paper air planes made of folded money and singing 'Secret Agent Man' in the mirror, complete with guitar simulation. Michonne was standing on the bed, dancing to his cover, with the tea lit between her lips. She ripped the band on a stack of hundreds and threw it at him, scattering them all over the bed. Rick did the same to a stack of fifties and soon they found themselves in a riotous money fight.
The silliness died down when Rick captured her and wrapped his arms around her and a bedpost. The raucous mood of the room tapered to a slow dance to the sound of the whipping wind outside. Rick fell back on the bed, with his hands behind his head, to marvel at this genuine treasure of his.
She used a bedpost as a stripper pole and filled his eyes, twirling her hair, rolling her hips and shimmying her breasts. It was a very short, yet effective show. Rick made it rain bills from his palms down her body and rubbed the pale green notes all over her until Michonne slipped on the crisp bills and fell off the bed.
Rick jumped to make sure she was alright and found her laughing hysterically under the veil of her locs. Her laughter suddenly turned to tears as Rick turned her face to his.
"What's wrong?"
"I just really miss cotton candy." Michonne burst into tears again.
Rick was caught so off guard, he cracked with snorting laughter.
"I forgot… I get weepy when I'm high." Michonne covered her face and ran toward the bedroom door to escape her embarrassment. Rick grabbed her before she could leave.
"Aww, baby." He said still chuckling, "I promise I'll find you some cotton candy. Okay?"
Michonne nodded in total faith, "Thank you…" she wiped her eyes, "I'm so ridiculous, right?"
"A little." Rick smirked, "But you're so beautiful I hardly ever notice." He kissed her so softly on the lips and never broke his gaze from her puffy bloodshot eyes. He was doing what he always did with those eyes of his- he was seizing her, putting her in golden chains. But it was Michonne who threw away the key. She buckled at the knees, bringing them both to the floor. Luckily, for Rick, the chain was purely metaphorical so Michonne wasted no time mounting him, plying him with kiss after kiss.
Suddenly she hated his bowtie and removed it hastily and hungrily to get to his bare skin. She tugged his shirt until it too became a victim of her passion, strewn on the plush carpeting. Rick was charged by this new side of Michonne. Normally, he was in control but he played along with her, raising his brow with curious smirk.
Soon she was jerking his cock with anticipation. It took some effort to raise her dress which had seized her broad hips and refused to let go. Once he freed the spread of her ass, he lit up smugly. No panties. He capitalized quickly on that access, exploring her dewy, buttery folds with one finger, then two. He strategically placed his thumb firmly on her clit as she wound herself on top of him, sighing through the feeling of flight. She became light-headed and slowed her pace. Lightning flashed every other minute, the glow hitting her skin, making her look otherworldly and radiant.
Rick had indulged her power play long enough, he decided. He threw her onto the floor and as she grabbed for him, he flipped her onto her stomach. He didn't speak until he entered her and when he did it was only to recite quietly his usual mantra of curse words. Michonne's voice, however, could be heard loudly, reverberating with every slow, deliberate and bullish stroke. He drove into her, driving her crazy, like he was searching for more of her.
More to love?
More to fill?
More to conquer?
But there was no more. There were no exceptions to what he possessed of her. It was the kiss he laid behind her ear that finally brought it all to a head and she came, crying out and trembling with enough intensity to pull him over that edge with her. Satisfied, he exhaled and sat up. He rested his elbows on his knees which were raised nearly level with his shoulders, his feet, flat on the ground though he seemed to be drifting away. He remained still, hanging his head till the ringing left his ears and the room stopped spinning.
Michonne made her way unto her back, floating on what felt like a magic carpet. "Rick?" she called with barely any energy left.
He cut his eyes over to her. Too winded to speak, he looked at her through the fallen locks of his sweaty hair.
"Benjamin Franklin missed one hell of a show. Not complaining, but… wasn't this supposed to go down on the money?" She reminded him.
Rick looked back at all the currency just a few feet away on the bed and began to chuckle, "Ok, See…" He paused to get his bearings and swallowed, still catching his breath, "Ok. Not a problem…" He could fix it. He was golden. He announced smugly, "That was just the dress rehearsal."