Iris lets the front door fall shut behind her as she enters the house, exhausted after a long Wednesday of school, but brimming to the rim with the thrill of possibility that accompanied learning her newspaper meeting had been cancelled. Despite having just arrived home, the smell of spring in the air on the walk over had rejuvenated her, reminding her that it was April and that the school year would conclude soon to make way for her summer adventures with Barry. Her excitement at this could barely be contained, and consequently, she didn't want to be indoors today. She tugs her earbuds out of her ears and hops up the stairs eagerly to find Barry, knowing that he had already headed back home before her, hoping that he didn't have too much homework so that they could bike down to the lake together before her dad returned from work in time for dinner.
Once upstairs, Iris makes her way down the hall to Barry's room when she halts in her tracks at what she witnesses through the partial opening of his door. She's lucky that she saw him before she heard him: had she done the latter first, she might have burst into his room thinking he was hurt instead of-
Iris can't believe it, but there was no denying the vision that lay in front of her eyes, Barry in all his lankiness, spread along his bed, masturbating as clear as day.
She should respect his privacy, she should leave him to himself, she should turn around and tiptoe back to her room, but as an all too common occurrence with Iris, her curiosity gets the better of her and she remains rooted to the spot, her eyes fixed on his hand circling beneath his jeans. There's no way he can see her from his vantage point even if he opens his eyes, so she watches stealthily from where she stands, terrible guilt for violating her best friend creeping over her, but guilt superseded by keen intrigue.
Of course Barry would do this, plenty of fifteen-year-olds would, but it's still difficult to reconcile her sweet, innocent Barry with this Barry who needed to jerk off as soon as he came home from school, like he had been waiting all day to and could no longer deny himself. Funnily enough though, he still manages to convey a sense of naïveté in his process, given the way his face scrunches in stunned pleasure, as if he can't quite believe how good he's working himself or be too sure of what exactly he's doing. His brows knit together in focused concentration, not unlike how they do with his default expression of examining something or someone quizzically, but the ecstasy on his face is unmistakeable. He was enjoying himself, and that notion causes a slow tingling down Iris's spine, such that she shivers with goosebumps.
His gratified face impacted her the same way his motions did, sliding down his pillows with effort, his wrist moving with whatever strokes he was employing underneath his jeans. Iris can't help wondering what, or rather who, he's fantasizing about. It had to be enticing for his nose to flare with deep inspirations, for his jaw to extend downward as though it were being tugged open, for soft gasps to release from his lips. Maybe Rachel McAdams? Barry did comment that she was beautiful when they watched The Notebook over the weekend. Was he thinking about the scene when Noah slammed Allie against the wall and kissed her, when he peeled her wet stockings off her legs to make love between them under the rain's downpour?
Was he imagining doing that with someone from school? The last girl she can recall Barry mentioning was that awful Becky Cooper from study hall. Iris mentally gags at the prospect of Barry touching himself to thoughts of her, refusing to entertain such a premise further.
Was he-picturing her? They were best friends, it's true, but watching Barry bring himself off had prompted her heart to race, caused that nice warmth to pool deep within Iris, the kind she felt herself at Noah and Allie's passion unfolding onscreen. Could it be possible for Barry to ever visualize doing that with her? She gulps envisioning him carry her up the stairs to his bed, ridding her of her dress, kissing her throughout, his eyes taking her body in the way Noah's took Allie's in just before he-
Iris's own imagination comes to a standstill when Barry sits up abruptly, still working himself, drawing a sharp breath inward through clenched teeth, seemingly frustrated with his progress and pressed to finish. Iris's heart flutters in alarm when he opens his eyes, fearing he had seen her, but his gaze settles on his crotch as he unfastens his belt, pushes his jeans down his thighs-
Iris looks away this time, actually stepping from the doorframe and steadying herself against the adjacent wall. She would not do that to Barry: she would not watch him expose himself without his awareness. That felt too invasive and was definitely unforgivable.
Still, she can't bring herself to leave, so instead she listens, trying not to picture Barry naked from the waist down with his cock in his fist. She hears the buckle of his belt drop to the floor, coupled with piercing, blatant grunts at this point. Evidently stripping himself was accomplishing what he needed it to. Iris squeezes her eyes and legs shut to quell a strange mixture of arousal and secondhand embarrassment for him, aware that the only reason he was this loud was because he was under the impression he had the house to himself. How little he knew she was standing outside his door this very instant while he got himself off shamelessly…
His moans grow so loud and strung together, less separate than just prior that Iris can't tolerate it anymore, ultimately deciding to sneak downstairs and go back outside until he was finished to put rightful distance between them so as not to awkwardly face him directly afterward-
But in her urgency, she doesn't notice the stack of empty laundry baskets that her father had clearly reminded her to return to everyone's respective rooms yesterday, and as her punishment, she collides into it, knocking two picture frames off the hallway's console table in turn.
The moaning stops immediately.
"Who's there?" Barry calls out, and Iris feels all his panic in addition to hers. She freezes right where she is, her usual ability to think on her feet hampered.
"Joe?" he questions hesitantly. No doubt, he was probably hoping the intruder of his private time would be her father over her. She figures it would be much less mortifying for him to be caught red-handed by him. She imagines the horror on his face if he realizes it was indeed her who was home and who had overheard everything, and this triggers her quick-thinking again. Just as she hears the rustle of bedsheets and the creak of bedsprings signifying his approach, she pops her ear buds back into her ears and occupies herself with straightening up the console table display.
"I-Iris?" Barry's croaks weakly, and she hears the terror in his voice before she sees it across his features, turning around to find him peeking out wide-eyed from behind his door, obviously hiding his bared lower half from her, despite his disheveled hair and flushed cheeks giving him away.
"Hi Bear!" Iris forces cheerfully, her own face burning up at the cognizance that he was semi-naked.
Barry stares at her, turning a deeper shade of crimson.
"I-I thought you had newspaper."
Boy, you sure did, she thinks.
"It was cancelled," she states simply, hoping she was coming across as nonchalant.
"I was running on the way back from school," he offers completely of his own accord, apparently in an attempt to explain his windswept state, despite her not having asked and both her and his knowledge that he would never voluntarily run outside of gym class.
Iris doesn't know what to say to that, worried she'll expose herself as aware that he isn't being truthful.
"How-how long have you been home?" he continues, ignoring her lack of a response, Iris sensing every ounce of his growing dread and mortification.
"Not too long," she feigns, hoping this'll ease his embarrassment in addition to covering her tracks. "I didn't think you were here." She gestures to her earbuds with an artificial chuckle: "Couldn't hear you through my music haha…"
Barry laughs along nervously, and Iris can discern he isn't sure if he's entirely convinced, but she herself is too humiliated for both his sake and hers to dwell on whether or not he is, growing more and more desperate to escape this entire situation.
"Well, uhhh-I'm gonna take a shower," he announces after a brief silence, Iris trying her absolute hardest not to contemplate what he'll do once he's in the bathroom.
"I'm just gonna-go to my room," Iris fumbles, her plans to bike to the lake abandoned entirely. She needed some space before she could look Barry in the eye again and forget these circumstances ever happened.
Barry nods with a timid smile that Iris reciprocates before turning on her heel and striding toward her bedroom. She has an inkling Barry's watching her as she walks away, and she's grateful for the lock on her door, not only for an added measure of distance, but for what she does next. Once she hears the water running, confirming that Barry was indeed in the shower, she tosses her earbuds aside, collapses onto her bed facedown, slips her hand beneath the waistband of her panties, replaying what she just observed as she palms herself to completion.
It was taking in her boyfriend's nude form while he slept beside her that prompted this recollection from Iris early Saturday morning. Barry was staying over more and more often lately, which didn't bother her one bit, given what it meant for their progressing relationship. She loved more than anything to fall asleep in his arms and to wake up just the same, their pillow talks not unlike the conversations their shared as teenagers, staying up late whispering together about everything under the moon so as not to wake Joe. They didn't have to whisper now, got to chat and laugh and fuck as loudly as they wanted to-at least until her neighbors pounded on the wall to get them to shutup.
Growing accustomed to his body and the change in their dynamic had her reflecting on how peculiar it had been to watch her best friend touch himself then, how it had struck her, nearly shocked her. To have him in her bed over a decade later, skin-to-skin with him, after having been under him, atop him, around him, was a profound evolution and recognition, one that delighted her. She remembered her wariness over breaching his privacy and infringing on his body then, but now he was hers. His body was hers, and for everything that she knew about him, she wanted to know more, wanted to explore each crevice and edge of his anatomy, wanted to be as familiar and as intimate with his physique as she was with him. That they had only slept together a handful of times, each encounter proving better than the last, that they had their entire lives together to continue to explore and learn each other thrilled her, surged her body to life at just the thought alone.
She watches Barry's face of slumber, his lashes swept downward to his cheeks, his mouth propped open slightly, resembling his teenage counterpart that afternoon when he tended to himself in his bedroom. The parallel shouldn't stir her as much as it does, but she welcomes the excitement, edging closer to kiss his hanging lips, morning breath and all.
Barry stirs, frowning in slight confusion before his eyes flutter open. They close once more, accompanied by his lips quirking upward after glimpsing her.
"Am I still dreaming?" he mumbles, puckering his lips to lazily reciprocate her kiss, or rather, so that she could kiss him with less sloppiness.
"That's all you're gonna give me?" Iris jokes through her kisses, but she doesn't waver, kissing his top lip, his bottom, the left corner, the right, his Cupid's bow, his chin.
"I've no energy," Barry defends, though he does at least offer his tongue. "You worked me last night."
"Mhmm, last night was quite…strenuous," Iris giggles against him, trapping him between her lips, deepening her kisses now. She would never grow tired of this, of him, of nights with him and mornings after. She would never get sick of his taste or his smell, of how he felt and what he sounded like-
She halts her kissing, pulling back to study him carefully.
Barry's eyes hover open again, seemingly realizing something was on her mind.
"You okay?" he probes softly, rubbing an affectionate hand across her back, bringing her nearer until their bare chests touched.
Iris bites her lip, uncertain why she wanted to come clean now, but certain now was the time.
"I actually wanted to talk about something," she voices.
Barry's gaze lights up curiously, but he continues his rhythmic caressing, propping the elbow of his unoccupied arm behind his head.
"Anything," he promises, his tone loving, his gaze even more so. "What's going on?"
"It's not bad," Iris assures him, taking the hand stroking her in between her own two and kissing it. "I just-hoped I could gauge your memory a bit."
Barry looks intrigued at that, and Iris hates the inevitable embarrassment that will ensue on his part at her revelation, but she persists nevertheless.
"You might not even remember this but-way back during tenth grade, I came home from school one day and…"
"And?" Barry questions, obviously unaware of what she was referring to.
"And I was supposed to have some meeting after school, but it was cancelled, so I was back early."
"Okay," Barry blinks, her story still not ringing a bell.
"Well-you weren't expecting me back home so soon, and…" She pauses to gauge his reaction before continuing: "I ended up stumbling on you doing something in your room, something pretty private…"
Try as she does to prevent her smirk from taking over her face, she fails.
Barry's brows furrow, evidently scanning his brain for the incident at hand-until they widen abruptly. The pink tinge creeping over his cheeks confirms to Iris that he's identified exactly what she's talking about.
"Oh God," he utters.
"Barry," she starts, hoping to stop his shame in its tracks.
"You really just confirmed the worst fear of my teenage years," Barry groans, covering his face with his hands.
Iris swallows her chuckle, not wanting him to feel worse, as she can quite literally sense the humiliation radiating off of him while he burned up, his faint blush deepening.
"Do you know how much I was haunted by the chance that you had overheard me?" he poses.
"Bear," she tries again, but he keeps rambling.
"I was so afraid that you did, or even that you lied about it because you didn't want me to feel bad and finally I just-pushed it to the back of my mind and decided that you hadn't, but the possibility that you had tormented me for so long-"
Iris kisses him to shut him up, employing her tongue and everything.
"Babe, relax," she surfaces, "You have nothing to be embarrassed about, you thought you were alone. I didn't mean to-bring up repressed trauma or anything like that."
Barry runs a palm across his face, though Iris is relieved to see that he's smiling, albeit slightly.
"I just can't believe that I deluded myself into thinking that you didn't hear anything," he marvels, laughing at himself.
"I heard-and saw," Iris teases, unable to resist.
Out of retaliations and explanations for himself, Barry opts for his go-to defense: squeezing Iris's sides and tickling her senseless, much like what they each resorted to when they were younger. It stuns Iris how little could change between them even when so much did.
He eventually surrenders to hug Iris close to him, kissing the top of her hair.
"Now you get to see and hear everything," he jests, resuming his caresses.
And Iris wanted to. There was intention behind why she brought the memory to Barry's attention, and it wasn't just to see him dissolve into an adorably flustered state.
Being with Barry, sleeping with him, unearthing his body and further things about him when she thought she knew everything had her recollecting that fateful afternoon back in high school. She had uncovered a new side of him that had taken her aback, uncovered how roused she herself had been by him, enough for her to take matters into her own hands. If her attraction to him had been heightened then without her even realizing it, such that she couldn't resist, surely it was at an ultimate peak now that he was hers.
She's cradled against his neck when she speaks into it.
"Show me," she commands gently.
The hand moving up and down her arm stalls: "Hmmm?"
Iris sits up then so that she can look him in the eye and he can register her sincerity.
"Show me how you were touching yourself that day."
"What?" Barry perplexes, a smile teasing his lips. "I thought you just said you saw me."
"I did, but I didn't-see it all. I was actually respecting your privacy…somewhat," she considers as an afterthought.
"Iris," Barry emits, his blush returning. "Are you just-saying this or are you actually-"
"I'm not," she insists, her gaze on his, turning warmer herself at the prospect of this, at how much she wants it, at how much she wants him: "I'm not just saying this."
Barry seems to be at a loss for words, his mouth alternating between opening and closing. She doesn't blame his hesitation-they were still navigating their sex life, this entirely new sphere of their relationship. What she was asking of him was new territory, was private and paved the way for defenseless.
"I know you might be shy, Bear, but I don't want us to hold back with each other," she insists, and it was true: she wanted him, his entirety, his secrets, his vulnerabilities.
Barry swallows pointedly, still speechless.
"I thought you were so beautiful then," she reveres, meaning it, remembering how mustering the picture of him writhing across his bed had dampened her underwear on many subsequent nights. She strokes his face, enraptured by the features she was fortunate to have woken up to.
"Iris…" Barry exhales, and his torso starts to flush now, Iris certain of how violently his heart is thumping in his chest, a beginning sign of his kindling, a testament to how much she knew his body, an added provocation for her. She doesn't think she can stand his refusal, not with how he's burning up beneath her, not with how he's breathing against her, not with how he's looking at her.
She finally reveals her last resort, leaning forward to rasp it in his ear: "What if I told you after I watched you, I went to my room and touched myself until I came?"
He twitches unmistakably at that, and satisfaction floods Iris, knowing that she had gotten to him at last.
"You're lying," he croaks, his skin blazing now.
"I'm not," she breathes, practically quaking herself with the fire of anticipation, enough of it to prompt him even more: "I'll show you after."
It takes this statement for him to bore into her eyes without wavering, for him to lower the covers further down his legs, propping his heels atop them before parting his knees. Iris steadies herself on one elbow to observe, her eyes fixed on his palm enclosing his length, tugging carefully.
She was fluent in his cock by now, in its color and cut, its breadth and girth, in its texture and taste, but she would never grow tired of it, not now, not ever, not of its symmetry, not of its curvature, most especially not of its animation when he was ignited, like he was now, slowly passing his hand over himself again and again. She holds her breath at his fingers snaking across his shaft with careful command. He knew himself, was familiar with his body better than she was, with how to hasten his blood's course to his cock, and such a thought prompts her own heart to race, her own flesh to leak at the privilege of watching him unravel before her at his own doing.
"Still sure about this?" Barry manages through effortful motions.
"Keep going," she whispers, zeroed in on his cock, now raised to full mast. Barry spasms in pleasure at that, at her encouragement, at her scrutinizing his every move. He swipes a thumb over his head, teasing the vein along the side, at its most prominent ridge that her tongue had touched just the night before, the third site she had mapped on his body where his pulse was strongest, after his sternum, and after his lips. Indeed Barry's heart was so fast that Iris often felt his heart beating not only when she lay her head against his chest, but through his lips when she kissed him, through the veins of his shaft when he was inside her. He presses into the vein again, heaving reflexively, his lips parting to release air.
Iris sets her heavy-lidded eyes on his, imploring him to let go, figuring she needed to take it one step further, to obtain the real answer she was seeking.
"You were thinking about me that afternoon, weren't you?" she murmurs, caressing the sweat-laced locks off his forehead. "I made you come, didn't I?"
Barry grunts viciously, and Iris knows her cajolery jolted him to act. He rolls his pelvis upward, thrusting his length into his palm erratically, his rubs rigorous.
She studies him unabashedly, overwhelmed by his lechery and her attraction to it, certain the sheets beneath her were not only wet with her yearning, but soaking through to the mattress at the vision of him coming. His back stretches and he stills, flattening himself against his navel as he pulses, unloading onto his skin, a mellowed gasp escaping him for every spurt of semen that does. The pearly fluid splattered across his abdomen shifts up and down in tune with his panting.
Iris bends over and mouths at his stomach, at where his seed landed, kissing a path up his chest, to his neck, to his chin, and finally his lips.
"For every time you touched yourself thinking about me," she mutters in between kisses.
"You're gonna have to kiss me more than that," he rasps, an arm thrown across his eyes, still struggling to catch his breath.
Iris settles her cheek on his chest, curling into him, resting her hand atop his heart as he collects himself. Once his heartbeat starts to quell underneath her palm, he stirs again, gently sitting up so that she follows suit.
"You now," he urges, voice low, pupils eclipsed. "Show me what you did in your room that day."
Iris draws a breath in to brace herself, pressing the pad of her finger on his midriff, scooping up a drop of semen.
"You gave me plenty to work with," she states, laying backwards, her head at the foot of the bed. "This'll be quick…"
She unfurls her thighs for him, touches her center perfectly, just the moist fingertip of her index meeting her clit, mixing him with her, moving more and more slowly. Her gaze remains steady on Barry, his expression one of intoxication. She circles herself with precision, thinking of how he touched himself before her then, how he touched himself before her now, how he'll touch her for the rest of eternity. Her unoccupied hand reaches up to palm her chest, attempts to mimic how his fingers squeezed her breast the night before, how his tongue lapped her nipple.
Barry's jaw falls watching her.
"Iris…" he gasps. "Last night-you were beautiful. Right now…you're something else…"
Her own lips part at his astonishment, at her rapid spirals, the delicate pressure of her fingertip more and more fine until she could no longer look at him, until her folds puckered and her back arched, until she choruses with the reward of what she had done.
Iris huffs for air while his hand encases her own, opening her eyes when she feels his moist lips around her fingers. She meets his gaze, his other hand stroking himself again, now to her taste.
Her cunt throbs once more, and she opens her legs wider, not only to tend to her flesh a second time, but so that he can settle between them while he tended to his. They sync the pace of their gestures to move rhythmically, unwavering in their eye contact, audibly reacting to their own motions and to the vision of the other, Iris below Barry and he above her.
Barry hums around Iris's fingers as he sucks them clean, until Iris slips a digit within her folds, and bares her throat to moan. He squeezes around the head of his cock instinctively, releasing her hand from his mouth to cry out himself. With parallel motives, Iris reaches her free hand downward to cup his balls the same time Barry extends his to thumb her clit. They fondle the other's skin alongside their own, their movements precise and coordinated, ascending together by way of their hands and their displays.
Iris doesn't know what eventually does her in, her own finger treading inside her or Barry's pressing where she aches most, but she figures Barry vocalizing and spilling onto her stomach is the true culprit. An instant later, she's spasming deliciously, around her touch and beneath his, even more euphoric than she had just prior.
Barry wrings the last of himself onto her and deflates, settling down beside her at the foot of the bed, gasping for breath. Iris rakes her eyes over him shamelessly, at his ribs heaving and his cock laying sideways, limp against his thigh. She could cleave her flesh between her fingers and knead herself one more time at his collapsed form alone, at him reveling in his haze, but she opts to edge closer him. Being near his body surpassed servicing her own, and the only superior was his body joined to hers.
Perhaps Barry felt the same for him to twist in her direction, for an arm to snake around her to hold her while the other cupped her face, bringing her mouth to his. Just as she'd memorized, she feels his pulse through his lips while he kisses her. Iris reflects not for the last time on all it took for them since that afternoon years ago to get to now, side-by-side in her bed, both glazed in his cum, exchanging breath and fluid and lucid glances.
They separate for a dose of air, but Barry's still close enough that his lashes brush over her skin as they flutter open, the green of his eyes more prominent now, his lust having quelled, but the intensity of his gaze the same as always. She'd spent her entire life believing such fervent eyes were characteristic of her Bear, of everything he took in, until the day she realized they were actually characteristic of her, of how he looked upon her, adored her, wanted her, loved her. She had assumed his default based on all she had ever known him to be-when everything she had known him to be was actually a profession of everything she was to him.
Iris exhales to center herself back to the present, certain that it'd take some time before she could wake up beside Barry without being swept under a wave of reminiscing and rumination, but she'd treaded enough for today. She pecks Barry on the lips once more: it was time to enjoy her boyfriend's ardent gaze upon her and what it mean for now.
"We need a shower," she states, truthfully but playfully.
Barry smirks back, seemingly on the same page as her in recognizing the need to leave their blissful bubble and return to reality.
"So you remember my shower of shame, too?"
"I remember it all," she giggles, sitting up to head to the bathroom. And as Barry follows her lead, tickling his way behind her, Iris sighs contentedly, aware that loving her best friend, while without its deliberations and histories, gifted her a level of gratitude and comfort she'd never experienced before.