To my beta, V, I do love you so. Thanks for trying to tame my make believe words and for your understanding off my irrepressible lack of commas!

So much love and dirty filthy grotty thoughts to all my dames and dears and dead-sexy women who hold down the DW fort! Many ideas herein spilled out from you.

~~200+ FAVES! I hope I give the love back~~

Disclaimer: Rebelward is mine! Uh, yeah, ReBella too (thanks Vi). The rest of that business belongs to you know you.


Camp Out, An Horse

This is a song for the one that I love
I haven't met them yet
But I'm quietly confident

Although what if like you said
All I'm looking for
It doesn't exist
Oh I have to believe it does

Cause it's okay to fall down
It's okay to crumble
I've seen this before
I have seen this before

And you said you wanted to crawl down deep inside
But at this point of the last year I am happy to be alive and

Like that good Hole album
I could live through this
I can live through worse
So play it back in reverse
Oh play it back in reverse

Cause it's okay to fall down
It's okay to crumble
I've seen this before
I have seen this before and

You wanna camp out and I wanna screw around
In the dark
In the dark

But my hips won't give anything away
Not tonight not to you
but I think we both know you will stay

And I am surprised how this fits together
I'm surprised how we fit together
And that I will remember
Oh and that I will remember

Cause It's okay to fall down
It's okay to crumble
I've seen this before
I have seen this before
And you wanna camp out and I wanna fuck around
In the dark
In the dark

But you need to know I'd do this all again
Just to get where I am
Just to get where I am
And I let you know I'd do it all again
Just to get where I am
Just to get where I am

~~ll~~

I visited my monks at Mepkin Abbey, looking for solitude, peace and quiet, chants…or something the least bit helpful.

Entering the usually tranquil, well-tended, verdant grounds that had been my thinking place, I was pelted by a flurry of feathers and a mass of monks who'd thrown off their cassocks to chase down the hens that had flown the coop. I half suspected Bubba's wicked hand in things.

Dressed only in white undershirts and matchy-matchy flapping boxers, the brethren were beet red with exertion and frustration. Skinny, spindly legs and all! They were nearly more comedic than the squawking fowl. Jesus, what did God have against us beautiful people?

A bit undignified, if you asked me. I chortled quietly and enjoyed the show until a flustered, blustery, rotund, de-robed monk stopped in front of me. Short of breath, he panted, "Son, you can either help out or get out. You won't find what you're looking for here."

No shit, Sherlock. I had been seeking solace and a soothing place to think. Obviously that wasn't going to happen!

Just then a speckled heritage Rhode Island Red flapped atop my persecutor's head. Trying to rip the talons from his tonsure, he ran about like…well, a chicken with its head cut off.

I called out, "Wait! What if all I want is a chicken dinner?"

Oops. That stopped them. Even the fucking clucky aviators looked, agawk mid-squawk, at me.

Were the Cistercians really supposed to glare? Seemed a might uncharitable to me.

Oh fuck it, nothing wrong with a bit of altruism.

I joined the fracas with enormous laughter. Sensing with their wee pea-sized brains my predatory nature, the chickens raced away from me. It was needless, because that just spurred me on more, and it wasn't as if I couldn't catch them.

Meeting the dime-like scared stare of a shrieking Barred Plymouth Rock breed, I began to feel hungry and guilty all at once. I swear to fuck the little drummet shrieked, "Bella!" in my face.

Throwing it in the apiary, I wiped my hands with the helpfully supplied Germ-X, lest I came down with a killer case of bird flu, and strolled out of the place.

With Bella on my mind, thanks to a paltry poultry-brained piece of KFC in the making.

Bella.

This thing I felt for Bella was so strong and pure and tangled up in my own self-loathing, my own need for her regard, my shifting yearning for her lubricious blood, and repentance. It was nothing like the coercion I had been imprisoned with as a lead weight about my ankles from Chelsea's vacuous, voiding emotional warfare, an incarceration that was nearly the undoing of my family five years ago.

Bella had so subtly tiptoed into my heart that I didn't even recall the first markings of the strange shape my vessel was creating, making room for her. Like stars burning out, I only understood the fallout of her presence hours and days after being with her. I could have committed vampire suicide-by-Volturi when I'd made her cry outside of Richard's. That was all it took. Her anger, her punches, her weeping just the slightest bit before she bore up proudly, justly, to beat me down!

I just, I couldn't, comprehend how to tell her what I was.

She would hate me.

I would, in her place.

But then there was her asbestos-fingered slobber-dog, Jacob. And she knew what he was, yet still called him her friend.

It didn't really matter what I said or didn't. Having revealed more than ever before to Bella, she had seen me in swift motion, understood I could read minds, knew my cool touch, and somehow made clear, concise work of the fact that I didn't need to breathe.

Reminiscing on the feel, the explosion of her body against mine, the kiss of her mouth, the motion of her hips, I rubbed my lips with two fingers. Those two fingers had been soft and hard and right inside of Bella. I made her cum, I kissed her raw, I pulled her to me, threw her away, took off without a fucking word to the Glades; I never said 'sorry'.

I was in deep doo-doo.

And the fucking voodoo vermin dog had nuthin' to do with it.

Back at the revamped trailer, I was shoveled straight back out, like trash that needed to go the dumpster. Esme was the forklift that shunted me out to the Bronco, "Shoes on and shit off, Eddie." Handing me a Tupperware box filled, no doubt, with her baked goods, Maw saw me off with a care package for the Swans as if it was visitin' day at summer camp. Her final words of encouragement? "There's more'n one way to skin a cat, dear."

Lovely. And now I was back to taxidermy. And Bella. And Bella and taxidermy.

Bubba jumped off the parlor couch to shout out, "DUDE! JUST HIT THAT LTC ALREADY!"

I muttered beneath my breath, "Indoor voice, Bubba."

Kicking my boots against the roughened door mat and mumbling to myself, my arms burdened by offerings, my soul loaded with unsaid apologies, I screwed up my face just fucking knowing that Sheriff Schwan was going to answer my knock.

And he did.

His shotgun lay across his elbows; he rolled it back a touch so he could accept my gifts. Then he slammed the door in my face.

Piss and vinegar.

Gumshoe Charlie all but forced me to take drastic measures.

I scrabbled back down the ramshackle porch, drove the Bronco two blocks over, parked and breathed deeply.

I jumped out and all but flew to the perimeter of Bella's house.

Scrambling through overgrown bracken and thorny thistle and feather-sharp sago palms, I skirted their abode and sank to my knees in the foliage of the backyard.

There was a fat-as-fuck, happy, grinning bullfrog lounging on a boulder behind Bella's house as if it were reclining on a La-Z-Boy. His croak was so loud and guttural that I swear to hell he must have eaten a family of possums himself by the way it sounded like he was trying to hock up a ring-tailed hairball. The warty wretch was interrupting my concentration as I watched Bella illumined like a wronged angel in her shed.

When incapacitated by rage, Bella turned to manhandling dead animals.

Of course she did.

Plucking, forming, folding, and spreading a pelt of…what the hell was that? Ahhh, the skin of a coyote, she made it fit, perfectly, over an artificial body. Just like me.

I felt like puking from the truth of it all.

Vibrant, she hummed with vitality while I died anew. Her life-force lifted cerise to her cheeks and dance to her eyes, alight with fervor for her employ.

And the vision of her, palpitating with a taxidermist's inspiration, was a bonerfide wet dream!

Fuck. Now I was a stalker in addition to being a dickhead and an inveterate wanker.

And Bella prodding, propping, and arranging that half-dead form? She made me feel clean and dirty and wanting that compact learned touch upon me.

At least I had a lovely clean trailer.

At least M'Esme was off my back, a tidge, care of the opening of her new favorite hangout; a coin-op Laundromat where she met her fellow coworkers for starching and sudsing: The Slosh and Warsh.

I couldn't talk to Bella yet. A fat stinky blemished frog sat at the top of my throat. And no amount of expectorate could clear the blockage.

Meeting shaking heads and disagreeable looks, I returned home and went to bed. Not to sleep, but to dream of a better, less bitter me.

The following day found Bella at Mama Brown's, and me a foundling, hopeful thing. Em busted right in and sidled up to Rose, pinching her hard-boiled rear end. But I slunked around the perimeter of the building and cursed my idiocy one more unutterable time.

Always outside, looking in, I saw Mama coddle Bella in a way I was certain Renee never had.

Bella didn't look ballsy. She looked pale and sad. And, for the first time, small and breakable.

Had I done this to her?

Rose told devastatingly funny, gross jokes until Bella finally cracked a smile. "A black bra with a wifebeater is whitetrash demure. Ask Federline and Britney! A red bra screams slut and a white brassiere shouts virgin. But black? Leaves you guessing…it's classy!"

They rolled into each other amidst giggles.

I chuckled too, my emotions so securely twined to Bella's.

It was nice to see her smile.

That night I took one step further to larceny and trespassing.

I entered Bella's bedroom.

Through her unlocked window.

I argued with myself that she was asking for it. Better me than any other beast making free with her lair.

I knew it wasn't right but I no longer gave a fuck.

Bella's eyelids were swollen like blue pillows, the tip of her nose pink, her eyelashes stuck together like wet raven feathers.

She snuffled and snored.

Squatting for a good four hours with legs spread and my forearms resting over my thighs, my fingers dangling at my knees, I looked for all the world relaxed. I was anything but.

Watching, wanton, waiting.

Her bedroom was just this side of slovenly, and I almost wanted to tidy it up. Almost. I did fold Bella's discarded clothing and set it all on top of her dresser.

Sitting in her ladder-backed rocker placed in the corner of the room, I focused on the drab colors of the night, blending simple dreams of human fantasies before my eyes.

Unable to sit still for more than an hour at a time, I lifted Bella's mattress, delicately, and made the origami-like hospital corners that Esme was so fond of. Pulling the sheet down tight enough to bounce a penny off, I stole over images of Bella's bright tits bouncing beneath me.

The day's warmth captured her flesh. Drops of perspiration bundled into her cleavage, so ivory flushed, nipples lax with the heat and dusky and rosy. Bella rolled to her side. Perspicacious, I wanted to taste the damp, salty secretion caught between her bare breasts. The whir of the ceiling fan mirrored my rapid breathing, lifted and then settled the sheet twisted in the dip of her waist. The fan blades did nothing to relieve the sweaty humidity clinging to her skin and hair, but I could.

Halcyon days.

Her nipples were always straining high peaks. I could imagine the fullness of her breasts that were young but not exactly perfect. Better, they were bottom heavy and pear-shaped.…topped by deep fuchsia promontories that would lengthen even more succulently beneath my lapping tongue, begging to be suckled more fervently.

Shaking my head, I wondered if she was simply too overwarmed, overwhelmed in dreamy fantasies, just as I was. As fully aroused as her body appeared to be. I wanted to cover her in my shirt, fold over her flesh with my arms and chest. Shield Bella from this demon that was me. From my hungering eyes that wanted her in ways I had never considered. Hot and writhing beneath me, humid and sweaty and rolling above me, with those plumes and quills of quivering skin and always her nipples waving before my face, sliding across my cheeks, hanging down pendulously over my open mouth as she rode me sinuously, before she dropped lower and I reached up with my thirsty bloody mouth cleanly taking her jutting points between my lips, washing her with my tongue.

So quickly this lust appeared. These were not the thoughts of a gentleman; they were well on their way to being the ideas and fantasies of the beast. The monster I was.

Galled. Gutted, I felt the same eviscerating vivisection that I had reaped unto others, tearing up my own innards.

Distended, intestinal, infinite self-loathing.

Christ, I needed to stop this shit. I was getting nowhere but closer to a bruised fist and a purple cock at this rate.

My teeth like spikes, wanting to sharpen against her teats.

Tumescent beneath this trial of fortitude.

For three nights I watched Bella, trying to make up my mind that no longer belonged to me.

And now I was a creepy-stalker-dickhead-wanker-vampire who committed breaking and entering.

In the name of what?

This time I stole taught me many things about Bella.

I learned that she was disgusted when gnarly Charlie didn't put the toilet seat down and livid when he didn't flush – even I had to admit that was pretty damn gross -- shouting vehemently down the creaky stairwell, "I don't want to pee on top of your brewhouse piss, dad!"

Bella unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans on the way to the bathroom, and left the door open while she did her business so long as Charlie wasn't home.

Giving her some semblance of privacy, I at least had the decency to avert my eyes as I perched on the knobby and knotted live oak branch outside her house. Even with my lacking sight, by the black of night with her house aglow with every single lamp lit – talk about wasting of the world's finite resources, damn I was glad I wasn't paying that electric bill! --­ it was easy to watch her moving image from room to room.

The toilet paper had to be Quilted Northern Extra Plush. I'd have to check with Esme to see if Costco stocked that brand. And it had better be placed topside on the loo roll holder or else she'd take the war to Charlie.

Yet she worked her toothpaste up from the middle of the tube.

Showering each morning to wash the dusk from her skin, Bella used a soft natural sea sponge that pulled up a carnation flush to her flesh and sent a carnal flame to ignite me. Her hairbrush had seen better days; her hair was long and the most glorious mane, crackling with lush waves and vivacity.

My vision became more precise with each passing day.

Worn from work, school, and her oddly sensual hobby, Bella went nightly about her bedtime routine. Turning off her lamp -- by that point it didn't matter as my eyes had grown used to the night -- the last thing she took off was her panties. And then she was entirely nude. Because it was still ninety plus degrees at eleven o'clock at night and there was no other way to beat the heat. In a last bid for innocence instead of culpability, I tried not to look. Sometimes I even succeeded. Regardless, I still gasped, still shook at the idea of all that bare skin.

While Bella slept, I rocked, wondering at the renaissance that sleep begot.

Every little thing she did was provocative. The minutiae of her habits, foibles, quirks made me ever more enamored. Knowing that I was an interloper didn't make it wrong enough for me to stop.

All of her, every single fucking human bit and breath and behavior; each laugh, shout, cry, sigh, and frown of concentration made her more dear to me.

Feeling castrated, a eunuch, de-balled and galled by this washing over of concern for her, I damn well knew I was affronting Bella with my intrusion in her bedroom. Entranced, I'd never wanted anyone more and my previously free-wheeling cock-a-doodle-drool shriveled like a limp noodle at the thought of random chickies I could have with a mere click of fingers, the quirk of my mouth, the depths of my eyes immersed in lust! That same pain in the ass appendage rose with a straight-up shot of venom in Bella's presence, immersed in her sight, her scent, her unspoiled mind.

When the restlessness of waking caused her long legs to part, scissor, and slide deeper beneath her single sheet, I crept from her room, from her house. From her life.

~~ll~~

Home.

The double wide never felt less like home after a night in Bella's bedchamber. Not because of its refurnished nature, but because Bella wasn't there.

I was sick to death of specky mesmerizing Esme with her caresses-cum-cudgel and Bubba with his Playboy channel telethongs.

Four days later and he was still going on about the merde meteor.

Bracing myself for the worst, I jumped into the recliner and glared at Em. His silence was unexpected to say the least

In fact, sunk into the cleaned-of-coppers couch, care of magpie Malice, in our visitin' room he looked even more unnaturally pale.

"Well?" His silence was insufferable.

Whimpering, Bubba retched out, "Well what?"

"No more commentary on the Great Dung Debacle?"

A moan was all I got in reply.

He looked fucking rough. Well, rougher than usual anyways.

I strolled to him and prodded him in his granite gut just to watch him squirm, "Aren't you going to rib me about Bella?"

Doubling over, camped out on the couch under a mingey throw that had somehow escaped Maw's clutches, Bubba groaned, "Don't be such a dink, Eddie. Can't you see I'm in pain here?"

"Fuckin' A. What? Did you forget that we're vampires, immortals; we can put ourselves back together and essentially do not experience pain? What the fuck're you on about now?" I was disgusted because, truth be told, Em's heckling took my mind off of the woman I wanted to be with.

"No, braw, I really feel like I need to shit. I think. I ate some of that pizza-," the rest of his proclamation sputtered to a quick stop as he rolled around the cushions that were no longer pristine.

"MAN! I need to take a dump!"

What. The. Hell.

I said the first thing that came to mind, smirking as it hit the mark true and hard, "Well, shit a brick."

"No, you don't understand, it's more like there's a corn cob trying to force its way out my a-hole!" I knew right then that Bubba was in a bad way if he resorted to saying a-hole!

"You fuckin' defecatin' freeloader, I was saving that shit for Bella," I was more amused than anything else, but wanted to see just how far I could push bowel-movement-begging Bubba.

And I was morbidly curious.

As the spasm lessened, Em rebounded with, "What, you were going to win over the love of your life with stale leftovers?"

"What the fuck, Bubba? That doesn't mean you had to eat it!"

"Waste not, want not…like Maw always says," Bubba proudly thumped his chest just while I skewered him with fresh scorn.

I didn't rightly think this was what Esme had in mind, "Well, aren't you just a regular frugal gourmet."

Wincing over another contraction, he groaned, "Ahh, more like an irregular gourmet, bro."

He rallied enough to grab the back of my head and stuff it beneath the blankets, suffocating me in a humid, noxious, never-ending fart that stung my nose! I beat on his chest and then pummeled his stomach right where it fucking hurt! Holding my breath for real this time, I used the last of my air to insult and laugh, "Fuck you, Queefer Sutherland!"

Seemingly recovered, Em knocked my fist and bellowed out, "Nice one. The Lost Boys, righteous."

Vampire vegetarianism was one thing, but somehow I didn't see this human food thing taking off as a grass roots movement, and now the trailer needed a good airing out.

Mother Fucker.

Asshole gave an almighty piss shiver and I left posthaste in full distaste.

I had me some research to do.

~~ll~~

Summerville, known to us hellions as Scummerville, was my destination.

Pernell's International Taxidermy. Proprietress: Billy-Sue Pernell.

The empty lobby was a museum of modified mincemeat. Strolling around, waiting for Miss Billy-Sue to appear from the back of beyond, I took in the tooled-over animals. It was a bit like a walk through my most recent meals. And damn if each and every animal wasn't giving me the stink-eye! What the hell? As if I had anything to do with them being stuffed, fluffed, and displayed. Well, that one antelope caught mid-leap in the corner did look a tad familiar.

My nose burned with the stench leaking out of the backroom. Pernell's smelled like boontang, and no one ever wanted to go there. Not even Bubba.

A squelch squelch squelch alerted me to Billy-Sue's approach. Around the corner she came, wearing waist-high waders – that didn't bode well for the poor animals – over woobie jeans that probably belonged to Mr. Pernell, and further kitted out in a flannel shirt beneath a rubber apron that was splattered with guts like a soldier's flackjacket.

Her frazzled hair was shorn like sheep's brillo close to her scalp. A model might-could carry it off. Not so much Billy-Sue. Sans makeup that might have helped her rodent-like features, in a most weird way she was shades of Lurline. They could have been awkward half-sisters. Or half breeds. Or inbreds. Or whatever.

Offering my hand to hers that was sticky with visceral discharge, I held back a gag and introduced myself.

And my rotten first impressions were immediately turned ass over tea kettle.

The sparkle in Billy-Sue's eyes lit, her intelligence rebounded off the trophy ridden walls like the boom of her deep stately sure voice, "Eddie, what can I do you for?"

"Miss Billy-Sue, I did a bad, bad thing."

She nodded her head to encourage me on.

"I made a mess of things with my girl-, shit, sorry! With this woman, and I need to make it up to her," I stepped my way over truths that I hadn't even admitted to myself yet.

"And?"

"She's an amateur taxidermist. Do you give lessons?" I pulled out the dazzle to appeal to her susceptible nature.

She merely laughed and belted me on the arm, almost as fuckin' hard as Bubba. "Not usually. But, baby, with this economy I don't turn down any business! What did you have in mind?" B-S squinted up to me from her 5'3" height and smiled in anticipation.

With the plans hashed out, a voucher in hand that had been calligraphed by yours truly, I had one final question for Billy-Sue, "I just gotta' ask. No offense intended, but what's the meaning of Pernell's International Taxidermy?"

With the determined look of a serious businesswoman, she answered me with a slight laugh at her own expense, "It's simply a ruse, know what I mean, Eddie?" I nodded my head, 'course I did.

"Besides, everyone's doing it. Take, for instance, Charleston International Airport…they don't even have customs! Am I right?"

Grinning at her I had to admit that she was, in fact, right.

Billy-Sue walked me to the door and saw me off with a downhome hug and a holler, "Y'all come back soon now, y'hear? And good luck with your gal, Eddie."

~~ll~~

On the fifth night of trying to find my balls, I came upon Bella's window to find her in a torrent of tears. Without a second thought, I shoved up the rattling warped frame and landed like a cat in the middle of her bedroom.

Shakily, she looked up from the ball she'd made of herself in the middle of her single-sized bed. Opening her mouth like a guppy sucking oxygen from water, Bella found no words as I sat next to her, pulled her into me, caressing the heaving sobs of her back, "Aw shit, Bella. I'm sorry, I know you don't want to hear it, but I didn't mean to make you cry."

There was a subtle change in the quaking of her frame beneath my stroking fingers. Before long it came out in the guise of maniacal mirth, "What? No. I mean yes, you asshole, you made me cry," she gulped back another scatty laugh, "But I'm crying because my iPod just dropped into the toilet and it's fucking ruined!"

I shrank back and tried not to adore her even more. But, damn it, that gave a whole new meaning to iPotty!

The endless ferns of her black lashes looked bitten by rain, her face and chest blossomed under the rash of tears and refueled ire aimed at me, "Just what the hell are you doing here, creeper?"

Swiftly I dismounted her bed.

She followed, that fucking pointy finger that she's probably just shoved up a possum's ass prodding me in the torso, "You know the whole world doesn't revolve around you, right?"

My head hung low, a hand balled at my waist and the other clenching the back of my neck, I shuffled my feet. Ashamed, bashful, made damn near stupid and not one iota blasé, I watched her bare, beautiful feet stomp to and fro.

Bleakly, gingerly resting on the edge of her mattress, I started blathering, "Fuck. I could have known; your mind is just…fuck." I gave her absolutely no introduction as I whipped the green-on-white envelope from my back pocket, grabbed her swinging hand and palmed my gift, my apology, off.

"I got you this, but I would have given you a new MP3 had I known," my eyes remained shunned, downcast, disregarded.

I heard the tearing of paper, the crisp tangle and crumple of heavy cardstock when Bella opened the sheath and read through its contents.

The bed bounced and her giggle shivered through me! Bella was on her knees next to me with my face between her hands as she plucked gorgeous, full-mouthed, wet kisses all over my cheeks, eyes, brows, lips, and ducked her head to my chest and I felt her wide grin through my t-shirt, "No." Shaking her sedge-like hair, "This is perfect!"

I was mind-boggled, ecstatic, "So you'd rather have taxidermy classes than an iPod?"

I tried to scowl as I took her sharp chin within my hand and raised those glistening glory-brown eyes to mine. Her huge smile skipped perfect flat stones across the placid lake of my heart.

"Yes."

She was so close. Just a tug forward had Bella almost in my lap and her lips against my own. Whispering before the kiss, "I am sorry, Bella." The lap of her tongue and crease of her heavenly bowed mouth made me feel damp and hungry. Not for her blood, only for her insouciant touch.

With simply my hand cupping her jaw, I shifted sideways and took first her upper and then her lower lip between my own, groaning with the sexiness of such an innocent touch. Diving against each other, I embraced Bella, sat her in my lap, made a cage around her shoulders and back, and deepened our kiss until our tongues ranged back and forth. Basking in her glow. Elated that I might be forgiven.

With a hiccup and an mmmm, Bella found my cheek, my eyebrows, my ticklish ear.

I smothered myself in the heaviness of her tresses that fell unhindered down her back, "Would you call on me tomorrow? I'll make you something to eat."

Bella bubbled with glee again, chuckling against my throat in such a luxurious way that my skin flattened and then swelled up, seeking more. "Yes, Eddie. But I've heard about you and your game. I don't wanna' eat possum, so you better make it good."

Happiness. This was happiness.

Brought to a dead stop with her next utterance, "Eddie, I swear to hell this is your last chance. And, for the record, stalker," she whispered that last bit, "I'm not even going to ask how you got into my house. For future notice? You are not to come into my bedroom unless invited."

Stern and serious, she continued to play a sensual, racking tune all over my neck that was craned to the side.

Bella was back to her usual plucky self, and it was heartening.

Pulling those angelic siren lips back to mine, I snacked over them, knowing I would say any damn thing she wanted to hear, "No'm, yes'm, whatever you say, miss."

Sucking so salaciously on my tongue that I wondered if a slight bit more groveling would convince Bella to take that heathenish caress lower, she let loose a final time and gave me the skinny with narrowed eyes continuing to darken, dance, leap and dilate, "And I know you're keeping secrets." I bit my own tongue, Bella swirled her hips into me, "And I will wait."

Having already crossed the line, I didn't see the harm in doing so one more time even though I cringed as I asked, "Can I stay the night?"

Bella sat back, fidgeting with the stretched out neck of my t-shirt but looking up at me boldly, "Have you already spent the night with me?"

I gulped over the huge, sickening lump in my throat, deigning to answer the blunt query head on, "Yes."

Against my thromboning heard-heart, Bella nuzzled, "Well, seeing as you've apparently already made yourself at home, you might as well stay."

Wide of eyes, I leant back on my elbows as she decanted. Dropped her clothes to the floor. Bared herself to me.

Dumbstruck and rye-mouthed, I observed her walking around the bed, lifting the coverlet and sinking inside.

Bella's invitation made sour mash of my guts, churning with anxiety and anticipation. To hold her throughout the night!

"Well?" she made a dented shape of her pillow with her fists and settled back down.

I looked over my shoulder to her in complete consternation, "Well what?"

Bella was amused at my discomfiture, "Do you always sleep fully dressed?"

A bark of laughter, an unregulated smile, "Actually, Bella, I usually sleep very little."

She huffed and closed her eyes, "Shut up and take your clothes off already."

Fucking Hell. I loved her potty mouth. I myself had cotton mouth. My stomach roiled and now I knew how Bubba had felt after eating him some South in Your Mouth pizza.

She blinked and leaned up on her elbows to watch. First my shirt, dropped to the floor. I knew the burn of Bella's eyes all over my chest and watched her hands crawl out to knead the sheet.

With her sailing brown ocean eyes to mine, I unbuttoned, slowly, my jeans. Shifted them down my legs, kicked them to the side and stood to my full 6'2" height.

Licking her lips, Bella worked her way up over my legs, and I planted them wider apart. She bit her bottom lip until a bleached crescent appeared. Her fingers twitched, opened, closed when she met my tight black boxer briefs. Her eyelashes fluttered like a butterfly to the blooms of lantana. Hastening over the stiffened muscles of my abdomen, up my pecs, sinking back once, twice, thrice to my arms and shoulders, Bella made headway.

With my eyes snared to hers, she smiled so enticingly I could not help but be called to her.

Three, two, one step away, Bella shook her hair out in feminine fan and sank back, "And you can wipe that scandalous smirk off your mouth, Eddie. No funny business, mister. I may have forgiven you, but you exhaust me and I need my sleep."

Climbing in behind her, I said a silent prayer that the weak bedstead wouldn't collapse. It creaked, cried out, and then rooted like soot to the bottom of a fireplace.

Sighing, she drew closer, sank back against my hips, thighs, torso, arms.

Welcomed, I held Bella, one arm a rigid pillow for her head, her hair prickled into my armpit. The other wrapped around her waist, my wandering troublesome palm between her breasts, my elbow to her navel.

My fingers stroked, not to incite but to calm.

"Mmm, you feel nice and cool," Bella sighed like a sunburn under the refreshing touch of aloe.

"Not too tight?" I hushed against her cheek.

"No," muffled assent.

"Too close?"

"No," sleepy affirmation.

"Too cold?" I licked her earlobe just a little, to hear that sweet giggle.

"No," a whimper of acquiescence, acceptance.

Ribboning my hand from between her tits, lightly touching upon each downy peaked nipple, I made a big bowl of the delicious inclines of her ass and sealed it more firmly against my groin.

Bella snuggled into slumber.

The dew was like spider tracery webs upon the welts of her flesh. I feigned sleep. Wanted it. Imagined what it would be like to lie down and doze serenely. Missing out on this bit of humanity. Dreams troubled me every waking hour. But they were figments, fuckery, foolishness, and not reality.

As a silenced troubadour, I held back my words and my humming and made do with breathing the air of Bella, in and out.

Benzine cum engorged me. The buzz of eroticism smattered me. Bella's blood, Bella's sex inflamed me like the fire water of Kentucky bourbon.

My fingertips had never been this plush. Her body was the most intricate filigree.

I never wanted to leave. Never begged to sleep more. My erection beat faintly with each of her long slumbering breaths, my heart superseded it all.

I have to tell her soon.


~~Eddie wanted to say, "Fuckin' A! I need some lovin' tonight, ladies. A review will do nicely, and then I've got something a bit dirtier in mind."~~

Sorry for the wee delay, here's what I've been writing in the interim:

Incarcerated is complete, so go have a read.

Portentous Prompts for the Twilight 25 challenge – go check 'em out!

I am entering the MixItUp contest leaping off from the sexy irreverent prompt Touch.

Last, but oh by no means least, I have been working with blondie AKA robin on an entry for Les Femmes Noires contest. It's called The Bride of Edward Cullen (you can snort, we did). Here's the summary to whet your appetite: When Edward reneges on his promise to 'try' and changes Bella without testing the sexual waters, she emerges revamped bloodthirsty, bitter, and bitchy. The Cullens reap the rewards of her perpetual PMS in lethal, dead funny, and disgusting ways. Don't mess with the Virgin Vamp!

It'll be out on Friday, so alert our collab profile: SinisterSisterhood.

~~ll~~

Huge love to Tallulah, writer extraordinaire of Elemental, for reccing DC's! And, as ever, mad kisses to C-Me-Smile of the gorgeously lusty Begin Again for her beautiful mention.

Mega fucking huge thanks for the clippings, images, Youtubes from your own hometowns! Keep 'em coming. I may not remember to say thanks if I use them, but they are so much appreciated. And even if they never find a way into DC's please know that I have laughed my arse off regardless!

Check the latest Rebelward Without a Cause: Mad About the Boy and stay tuned for more. Bella, per moi, will be coming.

The Dead Thread link is on my profile.

Favorite fics that I am reading: Dark Side of the Moon, blondie AKA robin, Salacious Behavior and Earnest Speaking, by ThisColony, and Lessons Learned written by mistyhaze420 (sweet innocent piercing JxE slash).

PS. If you drop your iPod in the toilet, DON'T TURN IT ON, and contact me immediately, I speak from experience (unfortunately), Rie~