Soundtrack: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) – Eurythmics

Looking For Something

They aren't in a relationship.

They're friends.

They're just friends that…mess around sometimes, okay? It doesn't mean anything, because it doesn't have to mean anything. It's just sex, and sometimes music and cigarettes after, sometimes time away from Pete and Firkle. It's not that Henrietta doesn't like her friends, because she does. They don't tend to express affection for one another, and that's fine. It's good. They know that they're all tight, and they don't have to say it, like Stan and his parade of freaks.

Michael, he's something. He's tall and gruff and a pain in the ass, but he's something.

Henrietta's always thought that. She thinks it now, and she thought it way back when, when they started messing around in the first place. They weren't very old. She was a freshman at South Park High School, and Michael was a sophomore. It was a weird year, being without Firkle, who was still in eighth grade, but the year before it had been weirder – their ragtag group of friends had felt off-kilter without Michael in it, like it was missing an entire limb.

Or maybe that's just how Henrietta felt.

In any case, high school was weird. It wasn't as bad as middle school. She'd at least surpassed the stage in her development when her face flared up with wild acne and her breasts were tender and uneven from a lot of growth in a short amount of time. Her body had always had extra on it, ever since she was a kid, but puberty sent it all reeling out of control. Her thighs expanded, her breasts and hips blew up and nothing fit comfortably in clothes anymore.

"Stop messing with your clothes. You're stressing me out," Michael said, and exhaled cigarette smoke through his nostrils. They'd found a spot outside the high school just like they'd done in middle and elementary. It was a quiet spot, away from the chaos and noise of the school. It may have been small, but that didn't make your average teenager any less of a pain in the ass, especially when grouped together.

"Fuck off," Henrietta had said back. She didn't mean to mess with them. It was just that the top kept slipping down and despite her best efforts showed more boob than she wanted to show, because they were fucking big. And not big in the way that dickbag frat boys like in their blurry internet porn, but big. Real big tits, the kind that don't seem to fit into anything, because apparently no one gives a shit about making clothes for women with big tits.

Henrietta started to make her own clothes then, but it was sometimes fucking time consuming – she decided to start fresh in high school as far as grades, because decent grades were the only thing that were going to get her the hell out of this town. She could go to school, though she had no idea what she'd go for yet, just that going would get her own of the middle of nowhere and someplace better, someplace without the same stupid faces she'd known her entire life.

"Nothing fits me, okay?" Henrietta went on, and she didn't mean for it to be so soft, but it came out that way anyway. When Michael glances over at her with one thick brow cocked, she hardens her voice and repeats, "Just…fuck off."

Henrietta took out her third cigarette of the day, then, unwilling to let the silence stretch out between them without something to fidget with. Turned out, there wasn't silence for long. Michael spoke up, deep voice off-kilter and strange-sounding: "You look fine, you know."

A drag and a beat later, Henrietta considered reiterating to Michael that he fuck off. Instead, she said, "Easy for you to say. You're skinny and you're a dude. You don't even have to try. I have huge fucking thighs, massive tits and a fat ass and nothing is made for me."

The surprise on Michael's face was evident. Henrietta didn't really talk about hating herself. Most of the time it wasn't worth it. Besides, when you looked the way she did, people expected you to hate yourself. They expected you to want to snap your fingers and shed fifty pounds, they stared at you when you're eating, they laughed when they think you can't hear and maybe worst of all, if they didn't do any of that, they were guys, usually older men, that liked to sidle up to you and announce how they could appreciate a bigger woman. Like that was any fucking better than the people on the opposite side of the spectrum.

"And you know what? I don't give a flying fuck if messing with my clothes is 'stressing you out,'" Henrietta went on, "Because I guarantee you that it's ten times more stressful to be in them."

Michael didn't say anything for a long time. He stubbed out his cigarette under the rubber sole of his well-loved combat boot, and Henrietta wondered if she should feel bad for speaking up. Sometimes it seemed like her friends were only her friends until she had something real to say. She could talk about pain and darkness and poetry for as long as she wanted, but the second that something touched an actual nerve, it was weird.

"Henry," Michael said, and the way he said her name really did make it weird.

It wasn't a bad weird, though. It almost felt like a good weird. Whatever it was, they were in uncharted territory and careening out of control fast.

"It isn't –" Michael heaved out a long, tense breath and said, "There isn't anything wrong with you."

She stared at him. Mostly she didn't know how to react to that. Because yeah, there was shit wrong with her. He stomach stuck out over the waistband of her underwear and her sleeves were tight around her upper arms because they were too big. She couldn't find bras to fit her and she had to get shoes that were extra wide.

"I'm serious," Michael said. The way that he looked at her unnerved her, with his lips turned down in a deep frown and his thick brows swept tightly together.

That was when he did the thing that she never expected – Michael leaned over and he kissed her. He fucking kissed her. It wasn't a romcom kiss, which was good. Henrietta wouldn't have wanted a movie-classic kiss, though she didn't know how she felt about this one, either. It only lasted a fraction of a second, a quick peck to the corner of her mouth. Still, when she looked over at him, the evidence was on his face – not only in the smear of black lipstick across his chapped lips. It was in his expression. There was something naked there, something that she had never seen on Michael's face before.

"Shit," he said, and ran a long-fingered hand back through his curly hair, "Sorry –"

Henrietta cut him off with a second kiss. It was just as awkward as the first though twice as long, enough to last the space of a second and enough to mean that both of them knew what they did and what just happened.

"We can't tell the guys," she said decidedly.

"Definitely not," agreed Michael.

And they both leaned in for another kiss. Michael tasted like cigarette smoke and spearmint gum and if Henrietta had known that flavor tasted so good, she might have tried this out ages ago. She'd always known that she found Michael attractive, but never bothered to do anything about it. When she thought about it with his dry lips against hers, it was probably a combination of not thinking that she was good enough, and not wanting to cut into the friendship that she had worked so carefully to build.

But that didn't matter so much anymore, because Michael was kissing her back, and it was ten times better than any teen magazine or young adult novel told her that it would be.

The bell signaling the end of the lunch period interrupted their kiss, and they jerked apart in surprise.

"Huh," Henrietta had expressed.

"Yeah," Michael said. He unfolded his body and stood at his full height, now an entire six feet and two inches. Henrietta, by contrast, was a mere five-foot-four. He popped his neck and said, "I'll…text you or something, Henry."

And he did text her. He texted her later that night. Texting was easier than talking. They could pretend that the words on the glowing screens of their phones didn't hold meaning if they needed to. Speaking in person was different. You couldn't take back what you had said. With a text, you could pretend that you had been drinking, that you were half-asleep, that you didn't think your words through.

So Henrietta told Michael things. She told him everything. She told him that she'd thought about him before, that she'd thought about feeling along his long, thin arms and that she'd wondered what he tasted like before. He told her back that he liked her taste, that he liked the way that she felt when they drifted closer together.

It verged on dangerous, but neither of them cared.

The weekend after the first kiss, Michael showed up unannounced on Henrietta's doorstep, eyeliner-lined eyes looking more nervous than usual and cane in hand. Henrietta's parents were out, all the way down in Denver at the flea market to shop for antiques. They asked Henrietta to come, but she said no. She didn't want to waste her time in Denver with her parents when she could waste her time alone in South Park.

"Hey," she'd said, when she opened the door, "What are you doing here?" She almost asked if Pete and Firkle were on their way too, but realized only a moment later that the look on Michael's face was nervy, that his lower lip was bleeding from chewing on it, that his hand was white-knuckled on his cane.

"I don't know," Michael said honestly, and then added, "Maybe I should head out."

"No," Henrietta said, and placed a hand on Michael's, "Come in. Stay."

They ended up watching a movie together, some pulpy horror flick with loads of fake blood and screaming. Sometime through the flick Henrietta edged from her spot on one end of the couch to being side by side with Michael, the curve of her hip and thigh lining up with his straight-legged black pants. He noticed at about the same time as she did that they were so close together, and their eyes met through the dark of the basement and the red-blue flash of the television screen on their skin.

"Henry," Michael said slowly, "I have no idea what I am doing."

"Neither do I," she admitted.

And they kissed again. This time it was different. It was furious and needy and his tongue was in her mouth and it was so many things that she had never experienced before, but as soon as they broke to catch breath, she couldn't wait to experience again.

They spent that entire evening making out on the couch in Henrietta's basement and marathoning horror movies. It was probably the most awesome weekend that Henrietta had had in forever, even though her parents arrived home earlier than expected and insisted upon Michael staying for dinner. Still, he didn't seem to mind hanging around for dinner with them too much, and that was nice. Most of the time, Henrietta's parents drove her batshit insane, but it didn't mean she wanted her friends to be dicks to them. That was something she felt that only she had a right to do.

It didn't stop there, either.

Throughout freshman year Michael and Henrietta covertly snuck over to one another's houses for time away from Firkle and Pete. They still all hung out – neither Henrietta nor Michael would have it any other way – but the two of them had something different together, and that was good. Something different. Something special. Something secret.

It was probably cheesy, but Henry didn't give a flying fuck.

Making out started to becoming something else, then. First Michael started to shimmy out of his jackets and shirts when they laid on Henrietta's bed, bedroom door lock securely and curtains sealing out any light from outside. His bare chest pressed against her and shit, did that do things to her. Heat pooled in her stomach and throbbed between her legs. She started holding her thighs close together to get rid of the feeling while they kissed, but Michael told her to stop it.

Michael told her to stop it, and then he touched her there. It was tentative, the way that he first reached up under her dress, but serious. He wanted it, and he told her so in between hot kisses and shedding layers of clothing to her carpet.

Holy shit, that first time he touched her was incredible. He was a little shy, but determined, and it was endearing. He didn't make her come that time – mostly it was just awkward fumbling and eager exploration – but they established that this was okay. They could feel out each other's bodies and it was fine. They liked the way that the other looked, wanted more of that – Michael liked every curve and roll of Henrietta's body, and she liked his stick-straight, surprisingly strong form.

And honestly, it wasn't Michael that changed her mind about the way she looked. It was time, firstly, that made her realize that she didn't give a damn about the other kids at school laughing at her or people staring at her when she ate. She didn't care if her stomach rolled over the waistband of her purple pants or that sometimes the sleeves of things were too tight around her thick upper arms. She never used to care, and so she wasn't going to care now.

The fact that she had a guy regularly at her side between the sheets was just a bonus.

X

And that's how they are now.

Henrietta and Michael aren't dating, but they're doing something. Michael's graduated now and Henrietta is stuck in her senior year of high school, with plans to blow the joint five minutes after they finally hand her her fucking high school diploma. She's been accepted to CU Boulder and even if Boulder isn't ideal, it's better than South Park.

3:12PM Michael: henry are your parents home

3:13PM Henry: no theyre at some dinner with the tuckers. you coming over?

3:13PM Michael: yeah id like to.

3:14PM Henry: movies or sex

3:14PM Henry: or both.

3:14PM Michael: both is good. had something in mind tho.

3:16PM Henry: oh yeah what's that?

Michael doesn't respond to this text. Instead, a little less than ten minutes later, the doorbell rings and he's on Henrietta's doorstep with his big hands shoved deep into the pockets of his black overcoat. A crooked smile spreads across his face when she leans against the door frame, and he steps in.

When the door swings shut behind them, Michael dives in to kiss her, chapped lips on hers in an instant. He tastes like he always does, that good old familiar cigarette smoke and spearmint gum, and deep down under that something that makes him just Michael. His taste grounds her, makes her feel good, and best of all, makes that liquid heat pool between her legs.

Michael pulls away just long enough to ghost his lips over the curve of her cheek and say, "I want your dick."

Henrietta grins. She loves when Michael asks for this. Sometimes, very occasionally, they prefer vanilla sex, but the vast majority of their time spent between the sheets is dedicated to much more adventurous romps that plain old missionary. Maybe a year ago was when Michael first asked for this – to be fucked. They shopped around online when he admitted the desire, and found Henrietta's strap-on: black leather harness with a smooth, silicone cock fastened in the front.

It's probably one of the most beautiful toys ever made, but she may just be saying that because it belongs to her.

"Of course," Henry murmurs, and hooks one finger in the collar of Michael's shirt to pull him along upstairs.

In her bedroom, it smells like cinnamon candles and patchouli incense, a heady, erotic scent that intensifies every need she has. She pushes Michael back onto her bed and crawls over on top of him to connect their lips and grind their hips together. Michael responds with panting breaths and a whine so soft that she almost doesn't hear it.

Henrietta tells him, "Before you can have my cock, I want your mouth."

Michael's pupils are blown wide with arousal, and lust darkens his face at her command. He says only, "Yes."

So Henrietta commands lowly, "Undress."

Michael obeys her. He pulls his clothing off piece by piece, draping his jacket and his shirt over the headboard on Henrietta's bed. His leather belt clinks as he undoes the buckle and slides out of his pants, black jeans fitted to his mile-long, thin legs. Already trapped in his boxer-briefs is his erection, and when Michael steps out of his underwear, Henrietta swears that she can feel her mouth water at the sight.

Michael has a nice cock. It's longer than it is thick, and uncut, and overall perfect. She knows exactly how that cock feels inside her and inside her mouth, how it tastes and the feel of every ridge. He looks good naked, period. He's lithe and thin and pale and has nice, pink nipples – a smile creeps up on Henrietta's face before she can help it.

She instructs, "Lie back on the bed," and Michael does, with a grin of his own.

Henrietta starts by tugging down the zipper on the front of her dress. This piece is one of her favorites that she's made – a black and white gingham 1950's pinup dress, with the buttons up the front substituted with a big, silver zipper. Underneath it, she wears practical, black cotton panties and a bra of the same ilk. She does own some lingerie, but only finds it in her to wear it when she and Michael have something strictly planned, something important.

Henry loses the panties but keeps the bra – for now. She offers Michael a salacious smile and climbs up onto the edge of the bed. Without a touch to him, she reaches down between her legs and slides a finger along inside her, letting out a soft moan, aimed to rattle him.

"Fuck, Henry," Michael says, and she knows that she's done her job. She doesn't relent, even when Michael's breath starts to catch in his throat, and she feels like she might explode. She has to tease him first, draw it out, show him what he's missing out on before she can serve it up.

Michael's told her before that he thinks she's fucking beautiful, though she didn't need him to tell her that. She knows what she is, knows herself. That's more than she can say for Firkle or Pete, though she loves them nonetheless. With a final stroke to her clit and a hum of pleasure, Henry finally crawls over Michael's gangly frame.

"Come on," he says, voice low and raspy, "Give it to me."

She does. She lowers her body down over him so that his lips touch the apex of her thighs, the hint of his stubble scraping gently at the insides of her legs. First he kisses her thighs, the tiny spiderwebbing of stretch marks just on the inside. Then he laps along her in wonderful, teasing strokes. She grinds herself against his mouth, urging him to work more, and Michael obliges. He presses his tongue inside her, breath huffing out as he sucks and licks. He shifts and hums against her clit, making Henry's insides go haywire.

"Shit," she says.

All at once it builds, and as always with Michael she can hardly last at all. The warmth coils low in her belly and explodes, and with a gasp and body shaking, she comes, and comes hard. Beneath her, Michael wears a satisfied smirk across his face.

"Do you think you deserve my dick yet?"

"You tell me."

Henrietta pets a hand over Michael's curls and chews on her lower lip, never mind that she's messing up her black lipstick. A long moment of consideration later, she murmurs, "Yes, I think you do deserve it. You need it, don't you?"

Michael's smirk curls into a smile and he says breathily, "Yeah."

Henry slinks off of the mattress and retreats to her chest of drawers. She has to use a key to open the bottommost drawer – where she keeps her naughty things – in the interest of keeping her stuff private from snooping parents. Right in the front is the harness and dildo, long and soft and lovely. She makes a show of buckling it around her, watching Michael's chest rise and fall with heavy, needy breaths as she does.

When she pulls the lube from the same drawer, Michael turns over, canting his ass back in the air. Michael has a tiny ass. Barely there, especially in comparison to hers. But she likes it. Loves it, even. She loves his skinny, pale ass, and the way that she can tell that he needs her already.

Henrietta places a soothing hand on the small of Michael's back and rubs. It's a tender gesture, and she knows that neither of them will mention it later, but she also know that Michael needs that now, to feel wanted. Cherished. It's amazing how the touch of her fingers can do something like that. Just as Michael settles, Henrietta withdraws her hand and retrieves the lube. She pops it open and spreads it over her fingers. She used to like to glue acrylic nails on, but after she and Michael started doing this, it seemed inconsiderate. She settles for black nail polish with silver sparkles over her stress-bitten, stubby nails.

There's a soft intake of breath when Henrietta breaches Michael with the first slick finger. They both know that she heard him but pretend the opposite. Henry works the finger in and out of him. She knows this rhythm now, knows the way that he likes it. She starts off slow and teasing, and just when he starts to sweat, she works him harder, adds another finger and opens him up, working her fingers into his prostate and reveling in the shivers that wrack his body at the touch.

"Henry," he says. God, his voice is wrecked. He hasn't even had the dick inside him and he sounds fucked-out and desperate. He begs, "Henry, please."

"What do you need?" she asks, and runs her free hand through his sweat-damp hair. With a push against his prostate, she goes on, "Tell me. I want to hear you say it."

"Your dick," Michael snaps out, "Please. I need you. I need you to fuck me with your cock."

Henrietta smiles. She loves hearing those words almost as much as she knows Michael loves saying them. She pulls her slick hand from his body and affords a light smack to his ass before she agrees, "I suppose I can humor you."

A generous slick of lube to the strap-on later, Henrietta poises herself at Michael's clenching, open hole. She teases just a little more, knowing that he needs it from her, that he's desperate. She lets the head of the silicone cock brush against him.

Michael hangs his head and whimpers.

That's all she needs. She doesn't ease into it. They've done this enough times that she knows how Michael works and what makes him tick. The first couple of times that they tried this she would push gingerly into his body inch by inch, but that wasn't what he craved. He wants just a little hurt in his sex, enough to make him squirm.

Slammed up inside him, Henrietta feels powerful. She pushes down his shoulders and pins him. Then, she fucks him. She's relentless, slamming in and out of his body. She can't get enough of watching the way that the black dildo fills him up, or the way that he makes noises as she takes him apart piece by piece. Michael, trooper that he is, takes it all, and takes it greedily. He moans and gasps against her mattress, urging under his breath for her to fuck him harder, yeah, right there, and please, Henry.

She can feel him coming undone. It starts with groans and keens, his dirty talk slipping away into needy little noises ripping out of his throat. Henrietta stoops over him, rubs his shoulder, and then skates her hand over his chest and to where his cock bounces against his abdomen untouched, flushed dark pink with need. She coils her hand around him and slides a firm fist over his erection.

It doesn't take long for Michael to react. He fucks back onto the strap-on and then into the circle of her fist, gasping and panting and making slutty little noises that make Henrietta horny all over again.

"Gonna – yeah," Michael says, and melts into a puddle of himself as he comes in ropes over her sheets.

Henrietta slides out of him and sinks into her sheets to his side. She waits for a second, and then gathers him up against her, stroking his hair. She says, "So good for me," and feels Michael's lips turn up in a smile against her shoulder.

After a long while, despite the sleepiness in her limbs and Michael's clear exhaustion, she urges them both up. She doesn't bother redressing in anything nice, opting instead for a pair of comfortable sweatpants and the t-shirt from a show that she and the guys went to a couple summers ago.

Henrietta guides them downstairs to the basement, but makes a pit stop for orange juice that she makes Michael drink – he did, after all, work very hard.

Once he's drained the glass she asks, "House on Haunted Hill?"

"Sounds awesome," Michael replies, voice stretched thin and raw, "Now get over here."

Henrietta sets Netflix to play the movie and trots back to the couch, where she cuddles up against Michael's bony body. A sense of contentment pours over her body, over each and every limb as she rests against him, and she wonders, how is she going to feel without this when she's at CU Boulder next year? They have the summer, and then what?

Somehow, Henrietta thinks, she can't just give Michael up.

X

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