Lydia's P.O.V.
When Lydia stepped through the door to the living realm, she found herself in her bedroom just like last time, entering through the doorway where her closet should have been. The moon was high in the sky, both of her parents sleeping deeply, heavily sedated. Fortunately, she was able to get a couple good hours of sleep in before waking at the crack of dawn, readying herself for school, and departing from the house without ever having to see them. They were sure to have words for her, but Lydia honestly couldn't care to hear them. The school day passed by quickly. As promised, Lydia wore the marks of her husband's affection proudly, daring her teachers or classmates to speak up, say something. They remained expectedly silent. Maybe if Claire or Stacy were still enrolled at Miss Shannon's, they would have found a way to spin this around on her, mock her, maybe imply that she was "easy." That would be rich coming from them, and a refreshing change from their usual implications that she was revolting boy-repellent. In time, new bullies were sure to crop up in the wake of Claire and Stacy's absences. It was the natural order of things. For now, Lydia was in the clear.
Delia was a nervous wreck when she came home. Charles wasn't in sight, but if Lydia had to guess, she knew where he was; wasting away in his study, doing his best to destroy his liver. The despised redhead blubbered incoherently on the phone with someone- the police, Lydia gathered quickly, stringing together bits and pieces of what Delia was saying. Something about how "they were a bunch of incompetent pigs, her daughter had been kidnapped, and how dare they sit on their asses doing nothing just because she hadn't been gone for more than twenty-four hours." The girl found it all overly dramatic and tiresome and wished very badly that she could float through walls like the Maitlands. Then, she wouldn't have to subject herself what happened next.
Upon sighting her- in school uniform, walking through the door with a bored expression on her face- Delia shrieked and dropped the phone right to the floor without bothering to give the person on the other end an explanation. "Charles!" She sobbed brokenly, pulling Lydia into a crushing hug that the girl hated every second of. "She's okay! Lydia's home!" Meanwhile, the corners of Lydia's mouth twitched with distaste as she endured the embrace. They missed her so much, did they? They were certainly worried enough to self-medicate until they were in such a heavy stupor that the front door slamming shut that morning hadn't even woken them. Coming at the sound of Delia's call, her father stumbled down the stairs. He looked like hell. It was clear he hadn't shaved in several days, he reeked of liquor and was still wearing his pajamas. Instead of worrying about his wellbeing like she ordinarily might have, Lydia only felt a slight pang of guilt that was quickly overshadowed by disgust. She went missing, and freaking Delia was the one on the phone with the police raising hell, fighting for her while her father chose instead to abscond from reality?
Fuck them both.
"Where were you?!" Charles slurred once he was done sobbing drunkenly over his apathetic daughter. "You- you went to school? We were so worried!"
Lydia remained unconvinced. "I was with my lover," she announced boldly, remorselessly, sticking to her resolution to never refer to Betelgeuse as a "boyfriend" ever again. Chin tilting up rebelliously so as to better show off her numerous hickeys, she clutched at the shiny new camera hanging around her neck. "He bought me a present. It's mine and you can't take this one away."
The tears on both Deetzes faces very quickly dried in the face of such impudence. What the Hell was going on here? Who was this insolent brat that had replaced their passive, well-behaved daughter? Born and bred New Yorkers weren't about to take sass like that standing still. They yelled. And yelled, and yelled, growing increasingly red-faced even as Lydia continued to remain aloof and terse with her answers.
"You are forbidden from seeing this boy ever again!"
"Try and stop me."
"You thought two weeks was bad? Try two months! Two YEARS!"
Yawn. "Sure thing, Delia."
"If you don't watch yourself, you're going to end up just like your mother!"
The house went quiet. Charles' face drained of all color, well aware of the terrible mistake he had just made, while Lydia's bored countenance froze. Her eyes narrowed, upper lip curling in vehemence. "Don't you dare talk about my mother." Molten eyes flickered back and forth between her sorry excuses for parents before she stood from the couch they'd cornered her into, somehow looking down on both of them despite the height disadvantage. "This conversation is over. I'll be cooking my own dinner tonight. As far as I care, you can both starve."
With that, Lydia stormed from the room and up the stairs, furiously blinking back tears of rage. How dare he? What right did he have? Filled with all kinds of nasty emotions, Lydia lost herself in uploading the photos from her camera to her laptop, so much so that she didn't even notice when her husband's devilishly handsome visage made an appearance in her vanity's mirror.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Betelgeuse watches his sweet, tasty wife do "computer things" for a span of about seven minutes, leaning behind the reflective glass. He was busy imagining what response he might receive from her once he entered – the few hours she had spent in the Neitherworld were, to his mind's eye, probably fairly refreshing. He had, after all, left her with some of the best people he could conjure – minus Donny, but he had given Donny explicit instructions.
Eventually, his impatience won out and he pushed through the mirror's surface, running a filthy hand through gnarled, wild hair. "Baaaabes," he called to her, suggestively, halfway out of the looking glass with no idea of the chaos he'd caused, "I'm hooOOooome."
He was returned right to the mood in which he had left her, horny, intimate feeling, having made her cum by being gentle with her poor misused body. He had made things perfect for her when he left, in a manner that would almost denote him as thoughtful. What she doesn't know won't hurt her: most of those bath things came from forcing the Patels to rob their living counterparts of theirs, and as it turns out, Mrs. Patel makes a mean custom soap. Well, not literally mean. Quite nice as it turns out, but he wouldn't really know the difference. The wrinkled smile on his face reveals his grimy teeth, he at least, is overly happy to see her and he makes his way over to where she sits, his hands already pawing at her without any kind of permission, trying to get into her hair and under her shirt just to feel her living warmth and her soft skin.
"Didja have fun in the Neitherworld, sugartits?" he practically breathes down her neck, "I missed you."
Lydia's P.O.V.
"Not now, Beej," Lydia rejected gently, shrinking away from his touch. "I'm not in the mood." Despite her dour countenance, she found it in herself to gift him with a tiny, half-hearted smile over her shoulder- there and then gone. "I missed you, too."
Just as she said this, the vast plethora of photos she took during her stay in the Neitherworld- sans husband- finished uploading to her laptop. There must have been hundreds. The SD card was massive, could hold several movies worth of footage if she wanted to use it that way.
"Thank you for the camera," she acknowledged passively, without any of the beaming excitement that was felt when she first spotted it on his dresser. "It really pissed off my parents. Oh yeah, I'm forbidden from seeing you by the way." Her dry, emotionless tone was granted a slight reprieve in the form of a nasty smirk. She was sure he'd find that hilarious.
"I had fun. Jacques and Ginger are really nice and you should treat them better. Your brother is a fucking creep and I never want to be left alone with him again."
It appeared Lydia was fed up with propriety at the moment. Everything she had to say dripped with bitter sarcasm.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
"Not in the mood huh?" replies the ghoul, leaning down to lick her earlobe disgustingly with a slimy tongue. He doesn't stop what he's doing, despite her shrinking away, refusing to accept her admittedly mild rejection. That sounds like a challenge. He can be pretty slick when he wants. And she missed him, right?
He chuckles low over her shoulder as she acknowledges the mischief he caused with her parents. "Ole Chuck didn't like the idea of you gettin' your own equipment, huh?" he guesses incorrectly, and then suddenly clutches his jacket front, as if having some sort of heart attack. "I'm forbidden?" He gasps, "Lyds, say it ain't so!"
He gets down on his knees, next to her, eyeing her from down there lustfully for a moment before asking, "What'll we do? We could always elope! Oh, wait…." He laughs, "….hang on, I'm just gonna choke and die on the floor for a few minutes here. I don't think I've ever been forbidden from jack shit in my entire afterlife Lyds. What'd they say? You can't see that dirty boy punkin', he might be doin' stuff to you. Like fucking you. And I, Charles Deetz, haven't gotten my dick wet in over ten years. We're converting the house to a nunnery. I bought you a habit," he imitates her father's voice as if it were really him and then falls into gales of laughter as he collapses slowly to the floor.
At the mention of his brother though, he looks up from where he'd eventually wound up sprawled near her feet, and grunts suspiciously. "Yea I know he is. He's not so bad once you get to know 'em. He's the only one I know of that can get near the breach like I can. Otherwise, I wouln'ta asked him." He attempts to climb into Lydia's lap like an over-large gropey cat, then, squeezing and touching her in places, just to be a complete and utter nuisance. "What'dya take pictures of? Anythin' good?" he tries poking at her computer uselessly, blocking her arms, "Did you take any nudes?"
Lydia's P.O.V.
"Stop it!" She snapped, shirking his arms away and standing from the bed entirely, taking the laptop with her. "I'm sorry," she apologized tersely, not feeling at all sorry, and settled down in front of her vanity with the laptop. "I've just had a shitty day and like I already told you, I'm not in the mood." She made sure to dim the screen's brightness and dip the top just enough to hinder his view of the images as she scrolled down, assessing her work.
"I mostly just got the roadhouse, Jacques and Ginger, some of Donny, and…" She trailed off, contemplating whether or not she should go on. Donny didn't want her to tell Betelgeuse about their little side trip. Why? She wasn't sure, but she could handle Beej being pissed at her. Donny? No thank you. "Nothing much, really," she lied in a way that she hoped was convincing, shoulders hunching slightly. "That's all."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Oof! She drops him like dead weight as she slides out from under him, taking her laptop with her. Fuckin' teenagers! He looks surprised, to say the least, left bemused on the top of her comforter. She was serious!
She didn't even laugh at his jokes, and now she's spurning his attention? That behavior won't do. He works himself up into a crouch on her bed, letting her click through her photos momentarily. "Hmmm, nothin' that tells me who or what pissed in your cereal," the ghost growls, lighting a cigarette, "So I think yer lyin' to me, Lydia Geuse."
She suddenly finds her laptop whisked out from under her hands, floated into the air by the ghost, far out of her reach. He makes motions on his lap as if clicking and moving a mouse, the motions reflected on the screen high above him. "Now I gotta see how this thing really works—-nudes? Nah that's not a nude. I don't know what that is. I dunno how to work this thing. Liable to break it, maybe," he says, casually, "Mmm, nnhhh….nawh that's somethin' else….oh here we go." He 'clicks' his imaginary mouse eagerly, "Oooh, yep there's the Roadhouse….there's the stupid spider….th—-wait, you're in a different outfit in these. Where the hell did you find that?"
Did someone buy this for her? His lips go tight and she can see his expression change from casual mischief to disgruntled annoyance. He likes that outfit. What the hell went on while he was gone? He clicks, and clicks, and keeps clicking. They're taking a trip in Donny's car. They're going somewhere. Somewhere along the way he catches a picture she took of a look his brother slides her, and he snarls audibly. "Fuckin' dick for brains…." He mutters. Click, click, click—-that's not the breach. That's…..
…..the infamous den of sin that the girls work on the side, the Inferno Bar.
He almost drops the laptop completely from its perch, but catches it with a "Woah!" click. Click.
That's Scuzzo.
Those are Dante's girls.
A LOT of Dante's girls. There's Candy, and Trixie, and Zaza he thinks—-
That was enough. The ghost sputters. He spits. He is enraged, but mostly because she kept this from him. Sneaky little viper…!
"H….how did this …..when did ya—- Donny brought y'here?! I gave that asshole explicit. Fuckin'. Instructions. Lydia, are those Dante's girls!? Did you—-do anything with them!?" He points at her, accusingly, "Explain yerself, girl. And the clown—-did he fuckin' say anything to you? Did he touch you—"
Lydia's P.O.V.
"Give it back! Stop it, you're going to drop it! Ugh!" It was taking a lot of concentration to temper her tone, keep her parents from overhearing the commotion. He floated just out of her reach, but close enough so that it looked like she might be able to reach him if she could just jump a little bit higher. "You're such a jerk!"
It didn't take him very long at all to figure out how to scroll through the photos. This is where Lydia gave up, sitting back down on the stool to her vanity and pouting, arms crossed over her chest.
"What do you mean explain myself," she bit back, glaring. "I didn't do anything. You're the one who left your creepy brother in charge. He's the one that decided he absolutely had to get a lap dance before taking me home. If you're that curious about what happened, why don't you just go ask him, Romeo?" Again, the side of her mouth twitched into a nasty smirk. It wasn't often Lydia could get a leg up on him. At the moment, she was beyond grateful for the ammo her newest friends had given her. "But don't tell him I told you," she still dared to request snarkily, scowling. "He told me not to. Creep."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
He finds a picture of his pretty, innocent, perfectly corruptible Lydia in devil's horns next, clicking by accident to the next round of photos in his pique of anger.
"WHAT are THOSE?!" He seems immediately less concerned with Donny wanting a lap-dance than this picture, though it does fit his profile that he'd dump Lydia in a bar while he got his rocks off. Sick dipshit. Romeo. Did she just say Romeo?!
"Sto—-knock it off—-you are asking for it lil' girl." He has so many people to kill that he's getting a raging hard-on just thinking about it. Well, and maybe also because he's lustily flipping through the photos of her with the girls. Anger and lust were two intertwined emotions for him, and this was like a perfect storm. "Any scenarios involvin' Romeo and Juliet that these lyin' whores told you are pure and utter fabrications, a gross misrepresentation of my character, and furthermore, disgusting."
How dare she stroll into his seedy world so nonchalantly? So flippantly?! Oh, she was in. Trouble.
Lydia's P.O.V.
Ha. His adamant denial regarding Candy's story only told her that every single word of it was true. She may have been "asking for it", but he was full of shit and Lydia wasn't about to back down when she knew she had him caught in a lie.
"I prefer Macbeth, myself," she teased gratuitously, rubbing it in. Meanwhile, she dug through a drawer in her vanity very casually. "Romeo & Juliet is a bit… juvenile for my tastes. I like romance just as much as the next girl, but suicide pacts are just a little too sappy in my book." The insult was clear in her insinuations. He was the real romantic sap here. Not her, the inexperienced teenage girl. "Two of the fairest stars in all the Heavens having some business do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return," she quoted, tone sultry as she tied the horns in place around her head. "What if her eyes were there? They in her head. The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a lamp. Her eyes in heaven would through the airy regions stream so bright…"
With a put-upon sigh, she turned from her mirror and granted him a victorious, sinister smile. "That birds would sing... and think it were not night." It appeared Lydia was quite the little actress when she wanted to be. If only she could apply those skills to her genuine attempts at ingenuity. "I think I'll keep doing whatever the fuck I want, thank you very much. Trixie said that you're a big bully and not to let you boss me around… right before they made me an honorary Dante's Girl." Here, she beamed, for some reason quite proud of her status as a living, breathing whore.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Speechless. For the entirety of her little dialogue from preferring Macbeth, and her insults to Romeo & Juliet – he was juvenile, was he?! – she has rendered him speechless, and the little jab about suicide pacts injures him deeper than he's about to let on. Ow. But beyond that, she's quoting the scene he couldn't finish effortlessly, and his eyes are like blazing fire as he watches her dig through her vanity. Fuck.
Those goddamn hellcats. Those she-beasts. Hellions! Those monstrous little enabler encouragers! He wasn't about to be put in his place by a sixteen-year-old girl who'd just had her first real sexual awakening! He doesn't quite realize what she's up to at first until she turns, wearing the aforementioned horns. And, still quoting Shakespeare, she informs him she'll keep doing exactly what she likes and— Trixie said so, huh. The look on his face is imperceptible as she turns around and informs him of her intentions, but as she throws him that sinister little grin, his own splits into a slow…
….sinister….
…smile of his own.
"Honorary…..Dante's girl, is that right…." He practically purrs, in that gravelly baritone, eyes going from wide to dark in a blink. One emotion has won out of the two that were warring, and he prowls over to her and the vanity in an instant, faster than he had any right to be able to move. The laptop drops to the bed with a soft thump, snapping closed, and Lydia rapidly finds the ghoul pressed up against her, pinning her bodily to the vanity. His rough hand closes around her delicate neck just enough to threaten, able to enclose most of it in its span. He growls into her ear, "Little girl, do you know what I do to Dante's girls?"
It's a rhetorical question, which he answers with, "It ain't Romeo n' Juliet, and by the time I'm through, y'ain't gonna be speakin' Shakespeare." He gives her a little aggressive shake, for emphasis. "In fact, I think I should show you exactly what happened to that fuckin' dumb slut Trixie th' last time she crossed me." His hips have pushed against hers, and she can probably feel his intentions clearly.
Gripping Lydia by her neat and tidy little schoolgirl outfit, he bodily hauls her up and away, cigarette dangling from his lips. He carries her physically back over to her bed, switching his hands around deftly in order to fist one of them nastily in her pretty straight hair. He's not being nice about it, either, before where he had only squeezed and tugged he is now pulling, forcing her by her hair into a position over his lap. "C'mere," he directs her aloud, demanding she adjust herself appropriately, "You wanna be my whore, huh? You're gonna learn exactly what that's like, Honorary Dante's Girl."
Lydia's P.O.V.
She managed to swallow the gasp his rapid movements inspired, gripping the edge of her vanity so tightly her already porcelain knuckles turned a ghastly, bloodless white. I ain't afraid of no ghost, she reminded herself with stubborn determination, and jutted her chin up, maintaining a strong front. Despite her brave facade, her heart pounded. Her breaths were coming quicker. When he shook her, her adamantine guard shattered just a bit. The frightened child within made a split-second appearance in the form of wide eyes and an almost inaudible whimper.
"She's not a dumb slut," Lydia defended her friend fiercely, unfazed by the warning his insult garnished. She matched his ire bit for bit, legitimately infuriated by the way he spoke about these women- as though they were objects meant purely for his sexual pleasure, not people with feelings and emotions. "She's funny! And smart! And-"
Apparently, Betelgeuse wasn't interested in hearing about Trixie's numerous good qualities. Cutting off her impassioned defense, he manhandled her over to the bed, ignoring the way she squirmed and voiced her dissent. "Stop it- Beej, you're being too rough, I mean it!"
"C'mere," he ordered, unconcerned, pulling her hair in a way that made her scalp burn in protest. Still, her insides churned pleasantly, and she reluctantly moved into the humiliating position he wanted her in; bent over his lap, back arched, the side of her face mashed into the blankets. "You wanna be my whore, huh? You're gonna learn exactly what that's like, Honorary Dante's Girl."
Oh, she was a fool. She was so proud, so happy to be accepted for once in her life by a group of women that genuinely enjoyed her company that she forgot what it meant to be one of them. Lydia knew very well what he did to them. It was only through their reassurances that the stab of jealousy she used to experience at the thought of their trysts was dulled.
"Betelgeuse," she growled out in a last form of defiance, unwilling to cave to his whims as easily as she had in the past. "If you don't get your fucking hands off of me right this second, Betelgeuse-" Number two was grit out into the blanket brutally as she writhed atop his lap, trying in vain to free herself. "You're going to regret it– mmfff-"
Unfortunately, Lydia had also forgotten the cardinal rule of deception. You can't bullshit a bullshitter.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
"Ohohoo, oooaah, ah-ah-ah-ah! Not gonna say the B-word!" comes the sudden and surprised ape-like noise of dissent from the ghost, as Lydia threatens him with his name not once, but twice. His response is rapid, and Lydia finds her sweet lips wrapping around the plug of a round rubber ball-gag right after her warning of regret it. He's summoned it from nowhere, pushing it unapologetically into her mouth which was open enough to threaten him with a third incantation of his name.
He's instantly taken away her agency, her ability to recall him, in that moment. He knows, too, because he relishes in it - he tightens the strap behind her head physically, not bothering to use his juice so she can feel every bit of it. In a breath, he's kissed her ear lovingly and whispered to her, at least remembering she's a living breathing thing and not another ghostly romp, "T'tap out, smack m' leg twice an' I might listen. But now I ain't goin' anywhere, babes." Her hands, though, those are juiced in a blink to say secure behind her back as if tied with ropes. That ought to prevent any funny ideas about getting that gag out, and it let him keep gripping her hair and smoking.
She'd misbehaved, utterly. She'd forgotten who was really in charge here, who wore the pants. And he was going to make sure she knew it. With the girl gagged, her hands immobile, he could take a good slow drag on his cigarette, crossing the ankles of his black boots underneath her casually. The problem had been secured, and now he could take his time.
"If you were a real Dante's girl," he starts, his voice matter-of-fact, "An' ya went off like that on me, I'd put my cigarette out right on that pretty, flawless back of yers to watch you writhe." He switches said cigarette from one hand into the hand that grips her hair, carefully keeping it away from the strands. He blows smoke down onto the top of her head purposefully. "But, you're just an honorary one, so we can't do that, can we?"
His hand is free to roam, and it does. "Rejectin' me when I try n' touch you," he lists, "Not in the mood. I'm gonna fix that, little girl. You don't know what I can do to you." As if to give her a sample, he places his coarse, moldy hand flat on the small of her back, right above the knee-length pleated skirt she wears for school. In an instant, there's a rush of heated energy that pools right between her legs, throbbing, causing a sudden, intense, needful ache. It's as if she's been at peak arousal for hours, unable to find relief or respite, her body suddenly and powerfully begging for release. "How's that?" He sneers, listening for her muffled response from behind the gag, "Surprise. Let's list yer sins while we're sittin' here waitin' for you to beg me to get you off."
He raises her school skirt, then, pulling it over her back to reveal her perfectly round, luscious bottom. He loves her ass in particular, and takes a moment to soak it in – no special panties today, it seems. Regular every-day ones today and these seem to have a little ghost design on the ass, and it says 'Boo!' cheerfully. Adorable. She's precious. His hand relinquishes her hair in order to delicately, and slowly, scoot the little underthings past the smooth curve of her pert asscheeks.
"Lyin' to me," comes the first of her transgressions, "Is fuckin' hot. But I'll find out." THAP! The first spank is firm, but not too hard. His palm meets her ass squarely, making it jiggle. There's a dull sting with it, and it makes whatever awful aching arousal she's been made to experience worse. It isn't like the dream version, either – she can feel every bit of it. "Givin' me attitude when I come home after a long day's work? That's gonna be a problem, too." THWUP! "Daddy doesn't like it when his little girl isn't happy t'see 'em," he continues, "And fightin' me? Lydia Geuse," he laughs, aloud suddenly, giving her another, even firmer THWUAP! "I'm gonna win. I'm always gonna win. So y'might as well get used to it, you little viper."
Lydia's P.O.V.
At the foreign sensation of something big, round, and rubber stretching her jaw wide open, muffling her speech, Lydia panicked. The ability to call him back was the only real insurance she had to ensure her safety around him. It was her proverbial security blanket, the last assurance she had that he wouldn't cause her any real harm, and now it was gone. In the blink of an eye. Just like that. All she had on her side was his unreliable word, his half-hearted promise to "do no harm." Paired with the knowledge that he would likely never love her, this was enough to send her survival instincts into overdrive.
She went wild; yanking fruitlessly at the ties that held her wrists together, the efforts leaving light red marks behind, eyes misting with frustrated tears, and hyperventilating through her nostrils. A firm hand on her lower back kept her from bucking off of his lap and falling to the ground. Then, cold lips were brushing her ear tenderly, offering her a dubious opt-out of the precarious situation she found herself in. It was barely anything, considering how very untrustworthy he was, but it was enough.
He didn't want to hurt her. Not really. He was just upset. She had been rather callous with him, hadn't she? She hadn't even given him proper thanks for his beautiful, thoughtful gift. Her upset with her parents had been unequally taken out on him, which really wasn't fair of her. Ready to accept her fate, Lydia stilled her ineffective objections. Her inhalations were still deep and fast, but markedly calmer than before. It finally felt like enough oxygen was getting into her bloodstream. The hand in her hair had yet to soften its unyielding grip, but given time the burning pain had dulled to more of a numb ache.
However, when he disclosed what he would have done to her if she were a real Dante's girl, she couldn't help but tense up all over again. He wouldn't. One of her hands flattened in desperation against his pant leg, ready to deliver the slaps to her salvation should he find himself tempted to do such a thing. Luckily, it was just a ploy to make her squirm again, and the hand on his leg relaxed some. Some.
His admonishment for rejecting his touch made her feel terrible. She hadn't meant to hurt his feelings. He was just a lot, and Lydia had already dealt with a lot today. She could have let him paw at her. Feeling her up obviously made him happy, and it wasn't like it was something that took a lot of concession on her part. She was being a bad wife. "I'm sorry," she mumbled uselessly around the gag, right before he shot her full of concentrated lust. A muffled whine of pleasure tore from her throat, her eyes clenched shut, and alabaster flesh burned all over. Milky thighs clenched together beneath her skirt, trying futilely to rub herself to the completion she needed. Good fucking God. Now that she knew he could do this whenever he wanted, it made his ability in the bedroom all the more impressive. He didn't have to work to get her off. He did it because he wanted to.
The first smack, lenient as it truly was, shook to her the core. The reverberations of her fleshy backside tickled at her overly sensitized nerves, pushing her closer toward the precipice. Each consecutive smack was met with muted cries of pained pleasure. He wanted her to beg him, and she would have if she could have- because he was right. She deserved this. He had earned this- but she couldn't. Her bodily reactions to his abuse were, at this point, beyond her control. As much as she wanted to give him what he wanted, Lydia wasn't going to last long like this.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
By the look he catches from above her, she's getting the picture now. He doesn't have to make her listen, he can worm into her mind and he doesn't have to wait for her to feel anything, he can make her feel it. And he can make her climax on a bit of juice, yes, but he likes to work for it usually. That's the fun. It works because she's open to him – his strange sort of ghostly powers operating on some perverse power of persuasion. But he doesn't do any of that because it's no fun that way. He wants her to lust for him because she wants to, and he wants her to listen to him because she wants to.
That being said, this is very fun, convincing her of the latter part of that. Sometimes he does need to convince – not all his games are exactly welcome. The juice is helping, of course, sometimes a mental mind-fuck can be nice – and it isn't long before the swirling of pleasure and pain that course through poor Lydia overwhelm her. A final THWUAP to her backside and her spine arches, a long, muffled groan bursting past the gag in her mouth as she climaxes. She's soaked her panties, and the ghost can feel her damp thighs against his suit pants after a moment.
"Naughty girl!" Betelgeuse cries out, amusement edging his voice and he can't resist teasing her, "Dante's girls don't cum before their clients," whether or not that's actually a rule is irrelevant, he leans down into her ear and snickers, "Now I gotta get mine, sugartits. On yer knees."
He's been waiting for this for far too long. He's been achingly horny since he left her in the coffin they shared, and the memories of her abilities with her mouth have been floating in his brain for hours. He guides her down between his thighs insistently, releasing her hands from their invisible bondage as he does. The gag comes next, one hand unstrapping it from behind her head gently, the other undoing the front of his striped suit pants from where his arousal had been fitfully strained.
His engorged cock eagerly bursts forth from its confines, the tip of its ruddy head already drooling with thin droplets of pre. A heady chocolate scent wafts under her nose. He's still got that going on too, it seems. She goes right from the gag to his dick - he presses the wet tip to her sweet, soft, warm lips, moving forward with his hips in an attempt to ease himself forward into her mouth. "Open up, babes…"
Lydia's P.O.V.
She couldn't have stopped from cumming even if she wanted to, which she didn't- until, of course, he told her that she wasn't supposed to. Luckily, he didn't seem all that upset about it. If all he wanted as retribution was a blowjob, Lydia considered herself fortunate. Blowjobs were easy, especially with the way he tasted. Just like the last time she did this, his demand was obeyed without a moment's hesitation, and she sucked down as much of him as she possibly could in one stroke. Her bed sat higher from the ground than her father's armchair did. Lydia had to balance on bent knees, gripping his thighs for purchase.
This was her first experience giving head as both a sober and willing counterpart. Thusly, Lydia took the time to experiment. She worked him slowly, keeping her mouth still for long moments at a time so that she could see just how hard she was able to suck, which undulations of her tongue got the best reactions. It didn't bother her nearly as much as she knew it should have that he was treating her like one of his whores. He held her in higher regard than them. He must have. It's why he hadn't fucked her yet despite the numerous opportunities. Besides, as they had so excitedly pointed out, she had the ring.
She would be his whore if that's what he wanted. Besides, it's not like this was hard or anything- so to speak. Lydia didn't need alcohol to lower her inhibitions or relax her muscles, not this time. She sucked him slow and sweet, like a runny fudge pop on a hot Summer day. Something she was doing must have been right because her husband was making absolutely atrocious noises. Distantly, she worried that her father or Delia might hear. Maybe he'd be willing to gag himself. Not likely, she thought with a pleasant hum as he lathed her tongue with succulent cocoa-flavored precum.
Nothing to do but make him peak as quickly as possible, then. Shut him up.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
As Lydia finds out, she can suck Betelgeuse's dick pretty fucking hard. In fact, the harder she does it, the more he curses and hisses filthy directives of encouragement. He's not interested in being particularly quiet about it, either, so Lydia does have some cause for worry. Shutting him up is difficult enough in normal situations.
And while he may indeed be treating her like a whore, she's the best one he's had. Her mouth is living warm, all natural, and it's not fair whatsoever in any realm living or dead that she can just waltz right in and suck his dick like she'd been doing it for an eternity. Even though she was the one on her knees, she was quickly taking charge. At this point, the ghoul could care less. She was prime rib. She was caviar. And the slow, succulent time she was taking with him was making him writhe. This was agonizing. She works him into something of a state, where his need to get off is too burning, too achingly maddening.
He's going to see how far this little girl can go, how far he can push her. He already has learned in their previous encounter that she can swallow most of him, but greedily, he's determined he wants her to take the rest of it. He's forced to stop her attentions briefly in order to position her correctly for his little experiment, huffing in frustration as he does so, and he makes it as quick as he possibly can with strong arms, muscling Lydia about. Once arranged to his liking, he pushes into her mouth again with a hot groan, and then forces his dick rudely down her throat until he bottoms out against her lips impatiently.
"Fuck…." He snarls at the sensation of her slick, tight throat clenching around him, "…that's ….aa—aah….a good girl. Swallow all of it…."
He braces his leg against her bed, gripping her soft flesh for stability hard enough to leave little bruises later, and begins to fuck her throat and mouth as fiercely as he can without injuring her. He's beyond most words now, reduced to cursing and moaning her name throatily, wet slapping accompanying. He can't last long like this, furiously humping against her face, the lower slope of his muscular gut dragging lightly against her chin. Her tiny red horns poke at him lightly, and the sight of them spurs on his orgasm. She doesn't have to endure her punishment long, with a gravelly, snarling noise he cums, forcing a wave of chocolate-flavored spunk down the back of her throat. His cock throbs and twitches, pulling from her just enough to let her breathe then, still gushing and oozing sticky threads of residue across her tongue. "Lyds…..it's….not…okay that you know….how to suck….dick like that," he grunts, breathless despite having long ago lost the need to breathe.
Lydia's P.O.V.
Lydia squeaked in surprise when he hauled her up by her underarms, only to drag her up and lay her out flat on the bed, her head hanging off the edge. The ends of her hair pooled on the ground beneath them. Then, he was fucking her throat in a way she had previously thought impossible. She couldn't breathe, but just as before, she also couldn't bring herself to care. Not when he was groaning her name like that, grabbing on to her "sugartits" over her school uniform and anchoring himself for the ride of his afterlife. If she was going to be his whore, she would be the best damn whore she could be. A pleasant warmth overtook her. It may have been from oxygen deprivation, but Lydia liked to think it was because she was a "good girl" again in his eyes. All she could do was hold onto his hips as he thrust into her and hope that he wasn't so far gone as to forget that she was only human. She could only do this for so long.
Fortunately, she didn't have anything to worry about. Apparently, he was under a similar pressure. He busted down her throat with a vicious snarl, squeezing her breasts so hard Lydia had the obscene thought that they might pop and gush blood and gore all over her blankets. His withdrawal from her person was a relief, but she still glowed with pride. After choking down the last of his cum and finally getting some oxygen into her lungs, she huffed out her uncharacteristically cocky, teasing response to his derision of her apparent abilities.
"What…" she panted, red-faced and teary-eyed, blinking up at his upside-down image from her inverted position. "… like it's hard?"
Suddenly, there came a series of taps against her bedroom door. "Pumpkin," her father's voice sounded meek, "can I come in?"
"No," Lydia snapped with firm resolution, glaring at the door, not even bothering to take the steps necessary to mend her disheveled appearance.
There was a tense pause. Betelgeuse didn't even speak, and she knew he must have been tempted to. "Please?" Her father begged brokenly. As upset with him as Lydia currently was, she wasn't cruel. With a putout sigh, she threw Betelgeuse a pleading look to which he scoffed, rolled his eyes, grumbled something inaudible, and then popped out of existence.
"Come in." The door crept open slowly, revealing a miserable Charles Deetz. He didn't dare pass the threshold. "Well?" Lydia spoke sharply when he did nothing but stand there awkwardly for a few moments. She had yet to sit upright and was still looking at the world from an upturned perspective.
"I- I thought I heard… I don't know what I thought I heard…" The unkempt man rubbed at his bloodshot eyes, gripping the doorframe with one hand as though he were on the verge of collapse. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry. That was… It was very wrong of me to say that… but-" he began, as though he meant to provide some sort of excuse for his behavior.
"It was and you should be," Lydia interrupted icily, not at all interested in his half-assed attempts to alleviate his massive guilt. "Apology not accepted. Are you done?"
If possible, her father crumpled even more, as if she had physically struck him. Lydia felt nothing. "What's with the…?" He gestured vaguely around the top of his head, and she brought her own hands up, feeling at her horns. She'd honestly forgotten she was even still wearing them.
"None of your business," she answered with just as much pleasantness as she had all the other things he said. "Now go away." Charles Deetz may have been a shark in the real estate market, but when it came to the women he loved, he was a yellow-bellied chicken. Tail between his legs, eyes downcast, he obeyed his daughter's demand and let her be. "Yeah, you're really sorry, aren't you?" Lydia asked the door, slick, swollen lips curled with bitterness. "You worked so hard on that apology. Dick." Finally, she sat up, blinking rapidly at the sudden rush from all the blood that had flown to her head. "Beej," she inquired, voice soft again, looking about with rapidly fading disorientation, "are you still here?"
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Betelgeuse didn't really have words for how hot it was that Lydia hadn't even moved from her throat-fucked positioning to berate her father. It almost salved the very fact that he had intruded on them at all and invisibly, he chuckles low in his throat once the man leaves.
He re-appears stripe-by-stripe like a Cheshire cat, as Lydia queries out into the room. "Yeah yeah, yer other, better daddy's still here, babes," he replies, the rest of him oozing back into being fully visible. He had taken up a position right next to her while unseen. "Remind me not to really piss you off," he adds, his striped arms wrapping around the girl's slim shoulders warmly. Everything he had done up until this point was a scramble-repair, but he had managed it every time. Even by a hair.
He had not been kind to her this evening, either. So he lights up and observes her face, a clawed hand cupping her chin and tilting her head this way and that. That's a pretty face – flushed lips, slowly fading ruddy cheeks, and eyes red from tears. He places the cigarette to her mouth, still holding her until she takes it, huffing a cloud of slow smoke into the air. "Y'should really let me juice 'em," he says absently as he stares out at the door longingly, then turns to her accusingly, "Speakin' of, what kinda Bad Girl Bug bit you? You've been nothin' but piss n' vinegar since I got home, 'spect you're calmed down now though. Fucking hell Lydia. You're a natural at that cock suckin' thing. But your 'tude - can't be your trip, you had fun at the Inferno Bar – somethin' Chuck said? By the way," he leans in, tone frank, "Don't ever listen to fuckin' Trixie. How d'ya think y'got stuck with me, anyway?"
He nuzzles into her dark hair, stroking it with his claws. "Also," he adds, grimy hand sneaking up her shirt, and she can feel him inhale, "Unless you want to go again, baby, I recommend y'take these little puppies off." He taps the horns, then, "I have like a Pavlovian response to these fuckers, in case it weren't obvious."
Lydia's P.O.V.
Foul mood back with a vengeance, though Lydia now knew better than to take it out on her husband, his jokes were only met with lackluster pseudo smiles. She took the cigarette he offered and easily curled into his touch, tucking her legs over his until she was halfway in his lap. Obediently, she undid the knot that kept her horn-ribbon in place, idly setting the provocative accessory aside with one hand and sucking down nicotine with the other.
"He didn't mean it. He was drunk," she informed lifelessly, taking it upon herself to provide excuses for her father's cruel words. "And it's not like I've been being a great daughter lately." Stealing from them, smoking, drinking, fucking around with older men- a grave understatement- running away, and smarting off… No. Lydia definitely deserved their ire. Earned it.
"He said…" She nuzzled her head under his chin, pulling close to his chest and avoiding eye contact all in one go. "He said I was going to turn out just like my mom." The impenetrable wall that held her tumultuous emotions locked up tight fractured. There was a crack in her voice and wetness in her eyes that didn't come from rough oral sex. "My mom," she clarified, breathing deeply into his jacket, "who just died- and I mean just died. One month, two weeks, and three days ago. It was a heroin overdose." Tears streamed without mercy down her flushed cheeks, uncaring of her disgrace, but she didn't sob, or shake, or lose herself. Lydia had shed enough tears over her mother to be able to speak through them smoothly.
"They found her in a utility closet when she didn't show up for headcount. They don't… I don't know if it was intentional or not." Once the cherry hit the filter, Lydia tossed the cigarette butt to the floor shamelessly. Messes could be cleaned, and she wasn't willing to remove herself from the safety his arms provided. "That's why Adam and Barb are in the Neitherworld. They're checking for me, using one of their vouchers to see if she's… working there. They left the day I got the news. One month… two weeks… three days…" She allowed herself a deep, shuddering breath against him that could almost count as a sob if one were nitpicking.
"That vanity's all I have left of her," she gestured vaguely at the cherry wood antique. "It was the nicest thing we owned, and I got to keep it when I came to live with my father. I never…" Deeply ashamed of her actions, it took every ounce of bravery she could muster to continue confessing. "I never went to visit her in prison. I could have. All of her family lives in Moscow. She was alone here. She didn't have anyone and I couldn't even- I didn't-"
The wall shattered. Lydia had to muffle her wail of despair into his shirt, having worked herself partway under his jacket. This was the first and only opportunity she had ever had to voice the unspeakable; that her mother had committed suicide, would now be a slave for the rest of eternity, and it was all her fault.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
This calls for a second cigarette, is the first thing that swims through the ghost's brain. He lights himself one, and her a second, because at this point that was the immediate thing that needed attention as she cried into his jacket and hid from her pain behind his lapels. He doesn't reply for a good few moments, either. There's silence between them, but she can feel him gather her into his arms closer as if issuing some sort of unspoken apology. His grimy chin sets itself on top of her head gently after she's done speaking, having already been nestled underneath him for most of her explanation.
"So," he says, after a moment, "What yer sayin' is that I can't kill him for sayin' that sorta stuff. Can't do in your remaining sober parent. Gotcha."
The silence and broken crying he receives is answer enough, he only lets the pause happen for a beat before sighing out a large cloud of smoke. "Just sayin'….that's uh," he murmurs, slowly, "some pretty heavy fuckin' shit y'just laid on me, there, Lyds."
And it was.
Unbeknownst to her, he had just discovered the following things:
Why the Maitlands were in the waiting room and what they were doing there. So, demonstrating to them that he'd just ruined her life by marrying her and schtupping her while they were absent and unable to protect her was … great, good job. She was vulnerable and he took advantage. Of course he did. Second, that they were there for this in particular – already probably upset over the idea of it, and then he had to come along and make it so….so much worse. Oops. They were gonna be so pissed. Way more pissed than he'd realized.
That his conception of the wealthy, middle-upper class lifestyle he was certain she was rebelling against with her "goth phase" was much more than that. A sexually abusive past, and a biological mother addicted to heroin. So much so that she died, in fact. And he had capitalized on every bit of it, confusing her submission and attachment to him towards a great number of things and not vulnerable needy abuse victim. He had taken advantage of her good nature, of her pliant, giving attitude. He had run over her and she had taken it like a "good girl" because of this.
He had broken that vanity once when he assumed she'd gone and double crossed him, and been utterly puzzled as to her over-reaction towards it. He had blamed her hormones, the fact she was a woman, the fact she was a wacky angry teenager. But no, as it turns out, that portal he'd been using to slime his way in and out of her room as he pleased was a family heirloom of a sort. He almost felt bad for spying on her through it sometimes. Almost.
She was crying on a man who had never been really in touch with his emotions. No, for many hundreds of years he had embittered himself to the world. He was a monster and this was living, verifiable proof that it remained true. He had no rules. He was dead. He was beyond reproach from the living. Life screws you over, and then death does the same. When he had said, aloud, in the basement that he had loved her, was it true? When he had thought to himself that he did, had he fallen in love with a girl who was unable to really love him back? Did she know what love really was, after all this time? Traditional values held that he hadn't shown her anything but lust and manipulation. So did he?
In as much as he could remember about what it was like, he loved her. So, what do people who love each other do in moments like this?
To be real, the ghost didn't really know. He'd always been trying to convince her of something else. Convince her that she hadn't gotten herself into even deeper trouble with a dead guy who had lost so many of his concepts of decorum many years back. He remembered how he described the Neitherworld to her in blunt terms when they first had entered into it.
Lydia can feel the thrum of something in his chest and she presses against him, perhaps his heart beating, once. Under the guise of being patient, or letting her cry, he had simply let these thoughts run through his mind slowly, trying to untangle so very much all at once. On top of all this, there was his own way that he had met his grisly end.
"It's not your fault," he finally says, "You can't….fix somethin' like that."
She couldn't fix him, either. He'd already set himself up to be this way forever. He swallows, audibly, the odd sensation of acid burning his throat but he continues.
"Yer mom couldn't see the forest through the trees. Anyone who ends up that way….'s all pretty personal, but ….they just…can't see outside of themselves. I used t' be Juno's assistant, I think I mighta mentioned it," he explains, taking a slow drag on his cigarette, "I used to work in the ole dead-dog DMV right along the Maitland's problem-solving harpy. The reason I was her assistant was that I killed myself, but you probably inferred that."
He pauses, not knowing she already has this information, but it's pretty heavy for him, it seems, and he burps on a bubble of cigarette smoke, coughing once before pushing onwards, "The marks 'r pretty much gone now, but I took m'self out the auto-erotic asphyxiation method. Hangin'. Some people do it for boners, I did it because of a girl. Which I guess is sort of the same thing, if ya wanna be reductive. Anyway…. There was no one, not even that girl, who was gonna be able t'save me. There was more than just a …. broken ticker that led me to that place."
He sighs, slowly. This is uncomfortable, and he can feel the anxiety crawling under his skin threatening to reach up and choke him.
"You're a good girl Lydia. Your mom still loves you, that never changes even after you die. I've tried to change it, in m'self. But that stubborn bastard hangs on. Threatens you at knifepoint when you least expect it. Holds you hostage. Y'wanna know the irony of life n' death, babes? It's this: that girl I fell in love with wound up killin' herself about twenty years after me. The guilt got to 'er. She was my co-worker for the entire time I worked in that dump. Every time I'd clock in it was like someone stabbed me in the throat t'look at her. She forgot my name after a while. It was like dyin' every day for four hundred years till I weaseled my way out of there usin' red tape n' fine print."
He takes a slow drag on his cigarette and closes his eyes briefly. "The guilt got to you too, so we're married now," he adds, the finger points of his garbage fire of an afterlife not lost to him, "That bein' said….I can speed up the process and get the Maitlands to go see your mom. Tomorrow if you want. Nothin's ever easy, she may not be there at all. But I can force it with Juno. She can't ignore me anymore."
He pauses, and then, as if in summation of everything he's done to her, everything he's put her through, an apology for himself – saying the two words he vows constantly never to say to anyone, he says,
"I'm sorry."
Lydia's P.O.V.
"Your mom still loves you, that never changes even after you die."
"By the time she got locked up, she was so fucked in the head I don't know if she even remembers she has a daughter. I thought she might get clean in prison, but… she's beautiful. She never had trouble getting what she wanted from men. Iron bars didn't stop that." There were never any letters, no phone calls to contemplate rejecting. For all Lydia knew, her mother had forgotten her completely.
Her heart shattered to pieces for him as he disclosed the raw details of his time spent working for Juno. To have to stare at the person you love, the person you died for, every day and know that they met the same fate as you… For them to not even recognize you… To forget about you…
"Oh, Beej," she whimpered, pulling herself tighter against him with arms around his neck. Satin lips wet from her tears pressed to the flesh there, offering the only comfort she knew how. "Donny, uhm, he already told me. About how and why… but I didn't know about that. I didn't say anything because I knew you wouldn't like him telling me your business like that." She wished she had better words for him, the way he always seemed to have them for her, but she just didn't. Nevertheless, she would try. "I will never forget your name. I promise. I couldn't if I tried. I've thought your name every single day since you made me play charades to learn it." Cheeks heating, she dared to offer him yet another embarrassing secret. "I even, uh, have a notebook with your name scribbled all over it. God, you must think I'm so lame," she giggled nervously into his neck, amused and humbled by her own immaturity.
"I can speed up the process and get the Maitlands to go see your mom. Tomorrow if you want."
The tattered shreds that remained of her oversized heart dropped into her stomach. It hadn't even occurred to her to ask him for such a favor. It was too close, too personal. She wouldn't have been able to bear it if he mocked her for requesting such a thing.
"Really? You can really do that? Oh, yes, please, I'd owe you forever. I miss Adam and Barbara so much, and- and I need to know if she's there or not. I need to. You understand."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Betelgeuse avoids really responding to the first part of what Lydia tells him. He doesn't know to reassure her on that – the Neitherworld is an unkind place at first. Nothing to worry about when you're dead, no more problems. Just vices and indulgence. All he does after a moment is shrug, unable to offer her an answer. They'll find out what she remembers, exactly, at any rate.
"Yeah, Donny likes that story. He thinks it's terribly romantic. Or somethin'. It ain't. It isn't even interesting, not t'me. He was probably tryin' to make you uncomfortable, he likes doin' that, too," the ghost sniffs, unimpressed. "I'm gonna crush his trachea later though. He's earned it."
Claws stroke through her long raven hair, and he smiles mischievously after she describes her little infatuation with him. "I had a vague notion that was the case," he replies, tucking his chin a bit to look down at her. He doesn't mention that he found out she had, to his surprise and shock, actually been curious about him for some time via her very naughty dreamscape. "Valentino, and all that. I make a pretty hot snake and an even hotter miniature. I wanted out so bad Lydia, you have no idea. It's probably for the best you didn't. I had plans for you n' they weren't kosher."
The last bit is said teasingly, with a wink, as if she hadn't just been gargling every inch of his cock. "If it helps, I never forgot you either. I think I have some uh….draw…ings…." He trails off – 'doodles of roaches banging the hell out of her while more of them snapped her family into pieces with their mandibles, created while he was imprisoned' sounds rough, "….nevermind. If you think I'm gonna love you any less 'cause you're obsessed with me…" he shrugs, always the egotist.
He drops that last line as if she wouldn't hear it, too. Maybe she won't. His tongue slipped, and maybe he didn't notice it, either. He's preoccupied soon enough by her begging for his assistance, and he smiles nervously, looking a little out of place.
"Yea yea. I'll get goin' on it tomorrow….but….I mean….I may not come back with awesome news so….emotionally maybe prepare yourself in advance. Just….sayin' that upfront, Lyds. I don't know what I'm gonna find. But I'll go to Juno's and I'll send your weird neo-farmer parents back at least while I take it up. Might take me some real-world time, even though I'll only be there for a couple hours at most. Here," he takes off one of his dirty watches and passes it over, "This will let you keep track of the difference."
Lydia's P.O.V.
Love. Did he mean it? He didn't seem the type to use words like that in jest. Donny told her he would never love again… but everything that came out of Donny's mouth was a filthy, sugar-coated lie, wasn't it? Lydia granted her husband the mercy of pretending not to notice. She knew enough to know by now that he didn't like being called out, especially when it came to his emotions or lack thereof.
"You drew me?" She grinned, heart fluttering and tears drying at the prospect. "Can I see? You're a good artist. I like your little beetle doodles." The note he left her the morning after their sleepover was tucked away safely on her bookshelf where she could reread it and swoon whenever the urge struck her. "If you show me yours, I'll let you see my notebook- but you can't make fun of me, it's seriously embarrassing."
The watch he passed off to her was ancient. The face was cracked, the leather strap was dusty and far too long for her thin wrist, and the hands seemed to be moving much, much slower than the clock on her wall. The second's hand didn't appear to be budging at all. The hours were denoted with Roman numerals. There was an extra hour at the top, signifying that this was not an ordinary wristwatch. Lydia wasn't sure if it was even in working order, but she appreciated the gesture too much to question it and buckled the too-large band around her right arm unhesitatingly.
"Thank you," she imparted simply, meaningfully, looking up at him like he hung the moon just for her, before straining up to brush another sweet kiss across his stubbly, chubby cheek. "I mean it. I'll owe you. Anything you want. Name it, and if I can make it happen, it's yours."
Lydia was well aware that this was a dangerous offer to make but was too deeply grateful to give much of a damn. If all he wanted was her body, he would have had it by now, so she doubted he would use this for anything unsavory- but… There always seemed to be a but when it came to Betelgeuse.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
"Okay," mutters the ghost, dubiously. Lydia hasn't really taken in his warning, it seems about her mother. It was her funeral, proverbially, though fulfilling her request of showing her any of his doodles is…. not a good idea either and it makes his stomach twist. Maybe he's got some from before his little incarceration that aren't as ah….Goya-esque. He really wants to see her weird notebook. His ego suddenly needs it to survive.
In the meantime though, he earns a kiss for the gift of his watch, which seems to surprise him. It's dusty, cracked and caked in graveyard schmutz, and he'd had it since he started working as a caseworker. Who would appreciate such a thing but Lydia? And then, in exchange, she makes a Devil's bargain. Anything. If he gives her more stuff, will she make more promises like that? The screaming imp that seems to live in his brain hopes so. She must …. must know by now that making that kind of a deal with him was a terrible idea.
"If you say so," he smiles, unable to help the wicked expression from his face, "I'm gonna keep that IOU, babes. I never forget anythin' owed t'me."
"Sec…," he requests after that and reaches up into the air as if to snatch something out of it. Papers appear in his hands, multiples, semi-crumpled and messy with coffee stains and other damage. But there they are, and he hands them over to Lydia as promised, looking vaguely uncomfortable. There are so many crude, nude doodles of a long black haired girl reading a tiny primitive handbook, including a diagram of why she's incredibly hot with a lot of red arrows pointing to her tits and ass, and a half-way finished poem she once read aloud while in the attic alone he had transcribed. There's a number of other doodles of his Very Good Ideas to scare the living shit out of her parents, and a small doodle of a very happy snake carrying her shirtless off to places unknown. They are childish and impulsive, and there's a bunch of roaches with crowns and "profit", "freedom" and knives scattered through the whole little narrative.
There's also, towards the back of all the silly nonsense, a very detailed and studied charcoal drawing of her. She had apparently fallen asleep on the plush chair the Maitlands had situated near the attic door, and the ghoul had taken some artistic advantage. It is surprisingly good and shows great patience in contrast to almost all of his other innate nature as if he had truly been studying her carefully. This one is especially crumpled as if he'd wadded it up in an effort to throw it out at one point and regretted the notion later.
The ghoul nudges her after forking them over. "C'mon. Weird fap diary to me, let's go," he makes a 'gimmie' gesture to her. "I showed you mine, you gotta show me yours."
Lydia's P.O.V.
"I'm gonna keep that IOU, babes. I never forget anythin' owed t'me."
"I'm not scared of you," she returned, teasing, meeting his wicked expression with an impish smile and narrowed eyes. "Worst case scenario you'll want me to do some gross sex thing- and really, if I ask nicely you'll back off. So go ahead and remember it. Just try not to request anything too foul, please." He may wear the pants in their relationship, but Lydia held the leash.
A mess of stained, crumpled parchment suddenly materialized in his hands and Lydia eagerly accepted it when he passed it off to her. She slid from his lap to sit cross-legged on the comforter and spread them all out before her. Chin resting atop her knuckles, she took them all in with studious, lidded eyes, carefully roving across every line, each precise stroke. He was so fucking talented. Lydia didn't recognize the girl in his photos. Or maybe she did. She would have sworn she was looking at portraits of her mother if it weren't for the damning presence of the handbook in several of them. Then again, mommy dearest probably had her own copy by now. His sillier doodles earned big smiles that might have evolved into laughter were Lydia not struck by his more serious renditions of her.
"This is what I look like to you…?" Her tone was indecipherable. There was no way of knowing if she was charmed or insulted. In truth, she was deeply flattered. If his depictions of her father and Delia weren't so eerily spot on, she might have accused him of taking liberties with her appearance. She didn't have hips or breasts. Her eyes weren't that large, that captivating, nor her lashes that long. She just wasn't this beautiful girl he had drawn. There must have been some sort of mistake. Still, no matter how many times she blinked, there she was on paper in every shade of black and gray on the spectrum.
"You're gifted," she finally imparted quietly once she'd looked her fill, very gently gathering the old, delicate paper into a pile and setting it off to the side on her nightstand. "You should be proud. I'm, uhm," she began, searching her bookshelf for the damning notebook, "I'm not as good as you." Unable to look him in the eye, she passed it his way once it was located. "Don't expect much. This was mostly just something to keep me busy when I got bored at school."
Going in line with what she said, the first half of the college-rule notebook was filled with random notes and math problems, remnants of past schoolwork. The rest, however, was a treasure trove of deeply embarrassing material. It was just as she said; his name, over and over again. "Beetlejuice," all one word. Usually, it appeared in threes; block letters filled in with his signature stripes, flowing elegant calligraphy, harsh jagged letters stylized brutally. Many of them had curling, intricate borders that would have taken hours to detail properly. Of course, there were also beetles upon beetles upon beetles; ladybugs, scarabs, stags, weevils, fireflies, etc. They crawled all over the paper, infesting her notes as much as they had her mind.
Perhaps the most shameful additions were the occasional "Lydia Juice," drawn fluidly and prettily in the upper right corner of every other page. Just to see what it looked like, she had told herself at the time. Now, she knew better.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
"It might not be a gross sex thing," the ghost defends himself, looking very over-dramatically appalled with Lydia, "It might be an embarrassing thing or a scary thing or a weird thing or an embarrassing scary weird threesome which would cover all my bases now that I think about it—"
She was correct that she had the leash, but it led to a dog that pulls and yanks on his chains fitfully – just to get her to kick him occasionally. Jerk. As she turns serious about his drawings, his bout of mischievousness turns into a strange aloofness out of embarrassment, and he shrugs. "Y-yeah, that's what you look like. Or at least, it's what I see when I see you. I….had a lot of time to learn some things, yanno?" he definitely, definitely does not tell her that he started drawing hundreds of years ago in order to get some realistic action out of a piece of paper.
As she compliments him, he shifts uncomfortably and mumbles, putting her off. He's never been much good at anything, and it seems like he's not particularly eager to start. Even though he was something that apparently simply kept her busy at school, he eagerly accepts the notebook for a distraction himself, pulling out a pair of very self-important looking reading glasses. He takes a good look at the little journal studiously. He's quiet for a moment, flipping through the pages over and over.
"Babes, if we were at that point, I'd fuck you into the floorboards. This is the best thing anyone's ever made of me or my name. You like bugs, huh?" he's ready to torture her just a little, "You like it when I eat 'em? They remind you of me? You made me a veritable smorgasbord in these pages, hot stuff." He rolls onto his belly, journal in hand, and taps the corner where she has prettily spelled her name out including his last name as her own. "Lydia Deetz," he states, lowering his reading glasses so that he could peer at her from over the tops of them, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say this marriage thing wasn't just about you feelin' guilty. In fact," he adjusts the journal somewhat, "I think you wanted to marry me cause you liked me. A lot. These swirly letters say so. Oh – see, this one has a heart over the "i's". I told ya. Valentino. I have an animal magnetism."
He's almost done, but he's having too much smug fun with this, "You know, you coulda just summoned me and told me y'loved me and you wanted my hot, dead corpse insteada playin' coy."
Lydia's P.O.V.
Lydia couldn't bear to watch as he looked through her notebook, well aware of the embarrassing things it contained. Instead, as soon as he pulled those glasses out, she made for her closet, ready to change out of her school uniform into something less hideous and more comfortable. In contrast to her previous behavior, the door was left open this time. Hiding anything from him was futile. The marks on her backside were proof of that.
"Okay, fine," she admitted grumblingly, face beet-red as she unbuttoned her blouse and let it drop to the floor, leaving her topless as she perused her wardrobe. "So I had a crush on you, so what? It's not a big deal or anything. Also, this isn't news!" She reminded him, dropping her skirt and toeing off her socks as soon as she found something suitable. Briefly, she was left in nothing but her BOO! panties, but then she pulled a ripped up, oversized t-shirt over her head and stole the sight from him. It depicted the poster art for the original Psycho, and the neck had been removed completely, leaving the black cotton to slip down and reveal both shoulders. "It's not like you didn't already know…"
He must have with the way he was able to play her like a fiddle, seducing her with ease. For those few seconds of almost-complete nudity, Betelgeuse was privy to all of the marks he had left on her in the past few days; dark purple fingerprints on her breasts and thighs, large handprints on each ass cheek, rosy, discolored nipples, and flowering hickeys on either side of her neck leading a trail down to her chest. A less informed individual might think she had been attacked.
Lastly, she thumbed down her soiled panties and pulled on a clean pair- simple, black, and cotton. No frills, lace, or silly designs. The dirty pair was quickly stuffed into the hamper before he could steal them. They were one of her favorites.
"You know, you coulda just summoned me and told me y'loved me and you wanted my hot, dead corpse insteada playin' coy."
Lydia was going to drown in her mortification. "Stop it," she begged from the other side of the room, unable to be in any kind of close proximity to him while he was teasing her so mercilessly over such a vulnerable subject. "Come on, that's not fair! I- I didn't think anyone would ever see it, I was just messing around…"
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
The ghoul looked up from the journal briefly intending to pursue more emotional torture, but once his eyes caught Lydia topless and left in nothing but her cute little underwear he stops in order to oogle her properly. She did look like something had certainly abused her thoroughly, and it made his lips curl in that awful sort of grin that revealed all the fronts of his grimy teeth and gums. The difference between Lydia and all the girls he'd been with while dead was the fact that her pale, living flesh recorded every time he had touched her or grabbed her too roughly, or made her skin flush with the weight of his hands, or sucked and bit her in various places a little too enthusiastically. Most of them were intentional, but some of them were simply because he was rotten, unapologetic and had little self-control.
Her shirt is cute, he thought internally as she pulled it down over herself, and he grunts under his breath as he notes she never does seem to wear a bra. Better for him, really. "It's news t'me," he argues, "I thought you were just in it for the sex." He tucks the journal away somewhere because he's decided he owns it now since she hasn't immediately insisted on its return. "You're just messin' around and I like messin' with you. How come you're always so embarrassed about it? I mean, I'm dirty, sure, and I'm dead, and I'm obscenely older than you but we knew that going into this thing. I like that y'like me. I only tease ya cause it makes y'blush and I like that, too." He's rolled onto his back now, hanging partially off the bed in order to eye her lasciviously from an up-side-down position. He resembles what she looked like just a few moments ago in fact, except without any dick being pounded down his throat. As her panties slip down her legs he makes a viciously filthy sort of throaty noise, happily crossing his legs casually as if enjoying a show. She's only changing, but it's enough to turn his screws, or at least, make him react. "I mean, we don't gotta talk about our feelings, either. You could just sit on my face, beautiful, that communicates plenty."
She's had enough, and he can tell. The severe look she throws him is indicative of that, so he chuckles and backs off. "For real though, you're stuck with me for at least a couple more hours, Lyds. I'm not goin' back to the Patel's for a bit," they kicked him out for a while, really, he's a hard pill to swallow for anyone who isn't Lydia it seems, "We could watch the grossest horror movie we can find and eat snacks till we wanna puke. You got a VCR in this dump?"
It isn't really a dump. He just uses terminology like that to be evocative. This, as far as he was concerned, was his house. And since he was going to go retrieve the Maitlands, he could see the cusp of him truly being king shit right on the horizon. The Deetzes weren't going to stand for him, and he knew it. All was coming together, all he had to do now was wait.
Lydia's P.O.V.
"You're just messin' around and I like messin' with you. How come you're always so embarrassed about it?"
"I don't know," she mumbled, flushing impossibly darker as he called her out. "I guess…" she began, after taking time to seriously contemplate the question, "because I'm not supposed to like you." This was imparted quietly, guiltily, as if she were afraid she might hurt his feelings. "And before you start, I know exactly what you have to say," she cut in when he opened his mouth as if to interrupt her. "We're not normal, it's okay to like what I like, don't listen to what other people have to say, yadda yadda," she rattled off points he had made to her in the past, rolling her eyes as if he weren't absolutely right. "But it's just not that simple, okay?"
Then, he was offering his face up as a chair. Scoundrel. Her lips pursed, eyes narrowing. She was the one uncomfortable with talking about her feelings, was she? He couldn't even make it through a serious conversation without working in a pass at her!
VCR?
"Oh, wow," she lauded, blush fading, staring in awe, "you are old. Let me introduce you to the newfangled contraptions of the future, Grandpa." Ignoring his foul expression, she grabbed a slim remote from her nightside stand and took a seat next to him on the bed. A click later, and her fancy smart TV came to life. It wasn't as large as the television in the home theatre, but it was substantial in its own right. "This," she began after navigating toward a little black and red box on the screen, "is Netflix." He was sitting up now, gazing at everything she was doing with avid interest. This alone brought a pleasant smile to her face that she hoped didn't come off as mocking. It was sweet, honestly. Taking his hand, she worked the remote into his palm, navigating his large thumb across the directional pads. "These buttons will let you move up and down, or right to left- accordingly. If you go all the way up," she used his thumb to navigate to the search icon, "you can search for something specific. Like, The Twilight Zone, for example." Still guiding his thumb, she started typing in the proper letters until the corresponding show popped up on screen.
"There. Get it?" He seemed a bit overwhelmed. Lydia's smile grew. "The little arrow button there will take you back to the main screen. I'm going to go make us something to eat. You go ahead and get acquainted with that."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Grandpa?! He was no cotton pickin' ancient Methuselah! Where did she get off?! He was in his prime! He was a stallion!
And he figured out how to make a television commercial all by himself, okay?! He was into broadcasting! That commercial was premium entertainment! The protest he was about to level with Lydia was readied on his scowling features, but his glinting, beady eyes catch the television screen instead. Flat screen. That's got some nice definition to it.
He sits up and leans forward, looking exactly like the perplexed, old man she described him as. Or, well, more like some sort of very suspicious, curious rodent maybe. His face was scrunched in concentration, all of his teeth showing, his brow rumpled in supreme focus. She takes his hand, then, and demonstrates how to work a remote. Okay. He knows how to work a remote, thank you very much. He has another protest prepped, but the indignation is entirely squashed by the fact that she's teaching him as one would do for a trained monkey. And she's being very sweet about it, and her skin is soft, and he likes it when she touches him.
Also, this so-called Netflix, as it turns out is great fun. She leaves him to it, and he's instantly and thoroughly distracted like a small curious child. New technology he picks up as quickly as he can and he's a quick study. He stares after her once she's gone completely for a good minute. Make us something to eat has finally registered in his brain. That's new and interesting too. She made him a sandwich once. And then he ate her for dessert.
He finds all sorts of movies and goodies. They just let you access these now? Whatever happened to copyright?! Well, fuck it, this is great. He almost, almost forgets where he is and calls to her that he found Tod Browning's 'Freaks' – but, remembering their current arrangement he flops backward onto the bed with a grunt. Patience. Patience was not his strong suit. He decided instead to imagine filling Delia's shoes with delicious roaches. Delicious roaches.
He could go for a roach. Or a fly. Or literally any insect at all. Worms. Spiders. He wagers that Lydia isn't making him some sort of dead bug soufflé. Can he ask her to make that?
Lydia's P.O.V.
Apparently, Delia and her father had taken her refusal to cook dinner seriously. When she came downstairs, they were in the formal dining room eating a sad little pizza. The air was tense. No one spoke. What little conversation that was being had before Lydia was present on the first floor dissipated into nothing. Unfortunately, this wasn't much different from how things usually were without Adam and Barbara around. Without them, it was almost as if the past two years hadn't even happened. They were right back to square one, performing their family act one scene at a time just as they had in Manhattan. However, Lydia was now far more in tune with her role of "the problem child."
Once delicious smells started wafting from the area, her silent parents made their retreat. Lydia drew her own smug conclusions as to why. Good. Now they wouldn't notice how much food she was cooking. She already had biting retorts ready for them in case they dared to question her, but was glad she wouldn't have to use them. Enough cruel words had been spoken today as far as Lydia was concerned. In perfect silence, she sauteed mushrooms and onions, baked two golden potatoes, and lastly seared two thick steaks in butter, garlic, and rosemary. The Partridge Family was stuck in her head, so a few classic notes may have been hummed into the air as she moved about the kitchen with grace and poise. Cooking was something Lydia enjoyed very much, one of the few things she and Barbara had in common. Ordinarily, Lydia would only cook on weekends while Barbara handled dinner on school nights, but they always helped each other.
They would be back soon, thanks to Betelgeuse, and maybe- just maybe- things with her mother could be repaired. Soon, Lydia thought with a near giddy smile, plating up their food. A stray dead fly on the windowsill caught her eye as she slipped her husband's steak onto his plate. Hm. Lydia's appetite wasn't at all wetted by the sight of it, but maybe Betelgeuse's opinion would differ. Did he even eat dead bugs? Or did he prefer them live? Well, she was going to find out. As an afterthought, the crunchy little thing was placed atop his steak like a garnish so that he could partake or toss it, whatever he wished. Then, very carefully, she balanced two plates, a glass of lemonade, and a bottle of beer for him in her short arms. Opening her bedroom door proved a bit of a challenge, but nothing she couldn't handle.
"Here, take this one, it's yours," she offered his plate pleadingly once she was through the door, the tiny fly atop his steak the only things setting them apart. "This too." The beer was handed off. No longer afraid of dropping all her hard work, Lydia settled onto bed next to him and finally took a moment to take in what was happening on screen. Whatever he was watching was black and white. A woman with no legs waddled across the screen. "What is this?" She inquired, interest piqued. Those were some pretty good special effects for something this old.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Betelgeuse scrambles back up into a sitting position as Lydia comes bundling through the door, his strange reverie interrupted. She hands him an enormous plate of delicious smelling fresh steak, replete with a fat dead fly garnish atop it – mushrooms, onions, the works. And a beer.
She sits down next to him so casually after that, as if she hadn't done anything at all. He looks at her for a long time after she asks her question, almost to the point of it becoming awkward. Slowly, suspiciously, he cuts into his steak. Blood seeps out underneath. Rare.
How?
How can such a simple thing for her make him feel so many things at once? She's asked him something. Something about the movie, but his gut is all twisted up and he can't seem to answer her right away. He's startled. Spooked, maybe. Maybe in that instant, like a lightning bolt, he's realized she's just done something specific in regards to their marriage that a wife would do. You don't need to feed a ghost. He doesn't require any sort of viable sustenance. But she did it because she cared. She even added a fly. A FLY.
He's staring. He knows he's staring, and he knows that some sort of unearthly color has risen to his cheeks, sort of maybe like a blush, sort of maybe like he's attempting to undergo some form of secondary rigor mortis. Snap out of it, Betelgeuse!
"'S….f…The…uh," he says, intelligently, and then in a rush he mumbles, "Tod Browning's Freaks."
He's almost afraid to eat this.
"It's uhm," he adds, trying to sort himself, "A ….revenge story. N' those aren't special effects. Those're the real deal."
He finally can't resist and starts stuffing steak into his mouth, fly included. He makes a singular noise that might be a groan, or a moan, or some combination of a very heated noise of enjoyment. The look on his face clearly indicates he hadn't intended to make that noise, either. Beer! Beer will fix this! He flicks the bottle open with a claw skillfully and takes a long, deep swig. Sweet blessed nectar, save this man from himself.
"Dinner's good," he remarks, after that, simply. He looks at her askance, more steak halfway shoveled into his gob. "….what?"
Lydia's P.O.V.
"Oh, good," she smiled in response to his compliments to dinner, already having cut half of her own steak into neat, bite-size pieces. "I wasn't sure if you like rare or not. I can throw it back on for a few minutes if you'd prefer it more done…" Her nose wrinkled in distaste at the idea of ruining a perfectly good steak like that, but then she trailed off, having looked up to see he'd already jammed half of it down his filthy gullet. "Nevermind." Clearly, he approved of the dead fly garnish. Maybe she could put up a trap for next time, so she had a more reliable source.
At the rate he was going, he was done long before she was; leaning back comfortably into the pillows, toeing off his boots, tossing his jacket, and unbuckling his belt to offer his substantial gut a bit of relief. A post-meal cigarette was lit and he continued nursing at one of Adam's fancy IPA's like a big, fat, content cat. Lydia was pleased. Even though he hadn't said much, she felt accomplished, appreciated, like she'd done something very, very right. The movie was good, too. Even though she was coming in late, it didn't take her long to pick up on the plot.
Lydia didn't need a lot to eat. She finished all the mushrooms and onions, a fair portion of her baked potato, and only half the steak. "Bubby," she called quietly out the window after issuing a soft whistle to get his attention. "Come get dinner." Immediately, he snapped to attention from the edge of the driveway and came bounding her way, coming to a screeching halt right under her window. "Sit." The gentle beast caught her scrapped steak between vicious teeth before it could hit the ground and gobbled it down within seconds. "That's a good boy. Who's mommy's sweet precious? Yes, mommy misses you, she does. I'll come down for you later, I promise."
She knew she didn't have to provide food for him. Since his appearance, wild rumors had sprung up all over Winter River concerning the ravaged deer carcasses discovered in the woods by shaken hunters. Words like "werewolf" and "chupacabra" had been thrown around. There was even a fuzzy photo of him featured in this week's issue of The Winter River Gazette. Lydia didn't think it adequately captured how handsome he was. In short, Bubby was more than capable of taking care of himself, but that wasn't going to stop her from babying him.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
The look the ghoul shoots her at the thought of putting the steak back into the oven, or of taking any of it away from him indicates his feelings very clearly about that. Like a jealous mutt, he guards it and continues to devour everything on his plate.
After releasing his satiated gut and oozing back onto his elbows, cigarette lit, far too content for his own good, he eventually becomes lost in thought for a moment. Perhaps, just perhaps, this terror still clenching his muscles was the simple fact that he had it good. He could get used to this. Things were finally lookin' up for the B-man after a relatively hard-scrabble afterlife of his own making. It came in the form of a sixteen-year-old girl and a cockamamie plan to marry her for his freedom. Why did this work out? It didn't make any sense, but the ghost was through questioning it for now. It was giving him a headache. Maybe, just maybe, he could actually relax and stop questioning whether or not he actually deserved it.
His wife feeds the dog, the dog that doesn't need feeding, and for a second, things are very still and peaceful in his mind. He doesn't even complain that she's spoiling the damn thing. He squirms until he rucks himself up against the pillows on her bed, crosses his legs, and puts his arms behind him, smoking silently. The clamor, the screaming, the bad ideas that haunted his mind were quiet, and so was he. Freaks was a fun movie, this bed was cozy, and he finally had almost everything. "If there's anything this movie taught me Lyds," he remarks aloud after a moment, gesturing with his cigarette, "It's don't piss off someone who only comes up to your knee, and don't fuck with a guy who doesn't have no legs."
Lydia's P.O.V.
"Common sense and decency should have taught you those things," she shot back teasingly, still leaning half out the window. Harassing the physically disabled was a pretty clear and obvious "no-no" in Lydia's book. "But I suppose I should just be happy you're even capable of learning lessons."
A naughty smirk was shot over her shoulder. Lydia was well aware that she was pushing it. However, she was capable of learning lessons as well, and if the events of the day had taught her anything, it was all she would get for mouthing off was a rough romp with her husband. Maybe a spanking if she really fucked with his fragile ego.
"I like this movie," she informed, sauntering his way before stealing the beer right from his hand and downing the last couple inches. "Freaks are the best." A face was made at the sour taste. "Ugh. Beer is gross. I wish Adam would develop some better tastes. You liked it though, right? You seem like a 'beer guy' to me." This was definitely not an insult or reference to his cuddly beer gut. Not at all.
Lydia was feeling cocky. Uninhibited, but not by the scant amount of beer she'd stolen. Things had very much gone her way today. Delia and her father had been adequately put in their place, she was confident that Betelgeuse cared enough for her to not cause her real harm, and Adam and Barbara- her favorite people in the world- would be coming home soon. Everything was perfect. It was time to make things a little more perfect.
"But," she began, climbing into his lap, settling her soft, cushy thighs on either side of his hips, "I missed the first twenty minutes." Despite her faux disappointment, it was clear Lydia couldn't give any less of a damn. "That's no way to watch a movie. You have to watch it title to credits or, in my opinion, you haven't really watch it at all, have you?" This was a rhetorical question. Pale hands toyed with his tie, trying to figure out how to undo it properly. It took longer than she was happy with and, frustrated, she gave up, crossing her arms and sitting upright with a pretty little scowl turning her lips. "Why do you wear that stupid thing? Take it off, I can't figure it out…"
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
"I'm highly receptive to pain-based learning, Lyds. A guy whacks your kneecaps with an aluminum bat 'cause he's only three feet tall, y'don't forget it," comes the matter-of-fact reply. Betelgeuse catches the look she throws him, but the one he returns is dubious.
It becomes even more dubious as she whisks his beer from his hand and polishes it off. What was that? Subtly dropping to him that this was Adam's beer as if he was some sort of cuckold in his own house in some strange fashion; as if he'd already taken the title of gets to do what he wants because this is Betelgeuse's house now. Woah.
She climbs into his lap. Woah. WOAH.
Is she hitting on him? She is definitely, absolutely hitting on him. His face is as surprised as ever, his expressive eyes so very wide, but he is certainly not unhappy. A steak dinner and now this? Fuck, he'd suck Barb's tits if it meant he gets the royal treatment like this all the time. He's not really listening to what she's saying after a minute, because her thighs are silky and warm and enveloping his hips – something about the movie, and missing some part of it. It's all become a mushy blur, because she's fussing with his tie ineffectively, trying to get it off.
Instead of replying, he gently works her folded, annoyed hands back into it and shows her how it's done, as if returning the gesture from earlier with the remote. "I wear it 'cause I look good in a suit," he smiles, just a little smug, his voice thick with a low gravelly intonation to it, "and it frustrates horny lil' girls named Lydia."
Upon getting the tie off between the two of them, he pulls her towards him by her shirt, those cadaverous eyes of his dark with intent. He puts her hands on his shirt buttons next as if telling her silently to keep undressing him. Once her fingers are working his buttons, of course, he pulls her against him by the back of her head, capturing her lips hungrily with his own in order to start a very slow but very desirous make out session. His tongue plies hers, unapologetic in his need now, no longer tentative or coy with her explorations. His hands then are free to crawl up her thighs like eager little spiders, holding her firmly against him for a moment by the tops of them, pulling her downwards as he rolls his hips upwards hard, dragging the crotch of his pants heatedly against the crux of her thighs.
She never has to do much to get him wanting – but this is quite different, she started this, with a purpose. Her desire alone for him, the moves she made, instantly sprang the boiling furnace of his lust to life and he was determined to eat this sexy dessert slowly. He isn't entirely sure if he can resist taking her the entire way this time with her assertiveness egging him on – his lofty plans seemed so trivial in comparison to her wants – but still, she deserved so much from him for a first time. Decisions, decisions. Was she ready for him?
Lydia's P.O.V.
That's more like it. Seducing him was cake. Lydia returned his kisses distractedly, unquestioningly following his wordless instructions to fumble with his button-up until it was completely undone and untucked from his pants, made loose by lack of belt. His hands felt so good sliding up her legs, slowly and purposefully, as if savoring each inch of exposed pearlescent flesh- just for him. Then, they tightened just so, pulling her down as he pushed up. They had played this game before, but that had been rushed and messy. This was different. Now, they had time and comfort to enjoy each other properly. Lydia was eager to take advantage, pulling him up by his broad shoulders until the dusty button-up could be pushed off and away.
All he wore now were the striped pants- tented, zipper straining- and a sweat-stained wife beater. She had to break away from their heated kissing in order to tug that over his head. Blindly, she flung it across the room as well, leaving it to crumple to the ground along with his tie. Lydia loved his body. She knew it was weird and "she wasn't supposed to", but she didn't care. He was a being of opposites; soft and hard, fat and muscular, dead and yet oh so alive. His moss-infested chest hair was something she especially enjoyed. The way it felt brushing against her chest when they cuddled in his coffin once upon a time was delicious. The memory alone made her want to replicate the experience.
Impatiently, she pulled away from his greedy lips to strip her oversized shirt away and drop it over the edge of the bed. Then, they were attached at the mouth again, each trying their best to kiss the other into submission. Who would eventually be the victor remained unclear.
"Betelgeuse," she moaned thoughtlessly as he moved down to nibble at her neck, hips rolling insistently, wiry hair scratching her over-sensitive nipples just the way she liked. "I think…" She trailed off into another high-pitched, breathy noise as he wrenched her down by her ass, claws carelessly digging into the cushiony flesh there. "I think… I'm ready."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
She was undressing him, and it was like no one had ever done it to him before. Or at least, not in any capacity he could remember that was similar to this. This real, physical sort of pulling his clothes off. He could just poof them, he knew, but that would take every ounce of fun out of the stripping, the handling, the way her fingers felt as they pulled and tugged at his vestments. He wouldn't be able to experience her hunger for him, and oh was it good.
She gets his wife-beater off and he lets go a positively filthy noise as she tosses it across the room. Every atom of his body wanted this, her enthusiasm spurned him on. It was every kind of wrong, indeed, their forbidden love – old, young, dead, alive, good, chaotic. So many taboos at its very core, all ready to be indulged. Though, as she presses her soft, lithe form against his larger frame again from yanking off her own top - so eager for him, his strange, moldering body and everything that came with it, it felt oh so right.
She can feel him shudder underneath her as she swiftly comes back to continue the fitful battle of lips and tongue, his self-restraint slowly chipping away. Her breasts pushed against his chest, soft, warm, pillowy things, far too delicious for their own good. Contrasting his own strangely textured skin, his masculine thatches of hair, she was like a silken dream. He wanted to eat her alive, and then some. The burning ache that pooled between his legs suddenly turned into an overwhelming rush of heat as the words she groaned into his ear reach his brain.
"I think….I'm ready."
Dear God, it's me, Margaret. How could he resist that? How was he supposed to? Every part of his body wanted it. In response, and almost for an instantaneous need to relieve the pressure of his trapped dick, he shuffles his hand down between them both and yanks open his fly. He grunts deep into her neck as his cock is sprung free from the prison of his striped trousers, rutting up between her thighs rudely, immediately gunking her panties with sticky smears of precum.
"….you sure baby? I …" he breathes, and she can feel him swallow heavily against her collarbone, trying to formulate words, "…had this…whole idea with rose petals, see…."
None of that made much sense. Her bedroom, taking her virginity from right under her parents' noses…that was good enough, wasn't it? They were safe here. This seemed like a good a time as any, right? He at least has the good sense to warn her, though. "….mmnh…beyond that, though…" he huffs, his hands gripping at various parts of her still, as if determined to touch every inch of her sexy, heated body, "…once I get goin', I ain't gonna be able to stop I don't think…"
As if to attempt to stop himself, or keep her from fully answering him, he rolls his weight onto her like a crocodile in a river. He did have an entire set-up planned, and even though he was so ready to fuck her stupid and then some, he was hoping on one scrap left of hope that he could possibly… possibly hold out. She's pinned under his weight, then, his gut pushing into her flat stomach as he heatedly begins to dry hump her. It was so close to fucking, and all he would have to do is tug that tiny, sopping bit of her panties aside with a claw if he wanted to. His thighs are surprisingly strong, and they hit her softer, slimmer ones underneath him with unapologetic, animalistic slaps. His hands dig into her shoulders, his own pushing the undersides of her knees downwards, bending her underneath him, her calves wrapped around his neck. She's flexible, he knows, and he's testing it now. That, and he's giving her a good taste. He curses, and curses, the entire frame of her poor bed shaking with his force, his cock riding against the soft, slick mound of her sex rapidly. Names for her tumble from his mouth, along with incoherent noises jumbled together. If she can handle how fiercely he's ramping up, she might actually want him to follow through. But he'll know soon enough.
Lydia's P.O.V.
"I'm not a-" virgin, she managed to gasp out as he hammered her into the comforter, leaving a little Lydia shaped indent. "I don't- I don't need that."
He was so heavy, so hungry. An unyielding weight on her shoulders kept her from pulling him down into another suffocating kiss. Instead, he hovered over her, grunting like a beast, dark eyes gleaming over her. They flickered indiscriminately between her face and breasts, eating up her twisting expressions and the way her chest bounced and jiggled with each forceful thrust. She used the leverage that hooking her legs over his shoulder provided, working herself against him feverishly.
Lydia didn't care about his plans. She didn't need silk sheets or violin music. She didn't need to hear that he loved her, whether it was true or not, and she definitely didn't want him to stop. Made fickle with lust, his bride was ready to throw caution to the wind in order to achieve the high she knew he could- would- give her.
"I want you," she crooned as he bore down on her, slamming down and then grinding with fervor. Black-painted nails bit into his muscled biceps, leaving tiny little crescent-shaped marks in the mottled flesh. It would be so easy to reach down and slide the damp crotch of her panties aside, take hold of him and position him properly for his next thrust. But his movements were so harsh, so fast she wasn't sure he would pause long enough to let her. That and Lydia wanted him to take her. She had balls enough to make the first move. He should have balls enough to finish it.
Frivolous with desire, she took no notice of their increasingly loud sounds of passion or the way her bedframe was pounding against the wall. Delia Deetz, however, was of an observant frame of mind tonight. A knock at the door stopped Lydia cold. "Fuck," she whispered reflexively, pausing all movement, head snapping toward the sound. The knob mechanism laid horizontally. It was unlocked. Just as rapidly, she was back to gazing at her husband- with a different kind of desperation this time. Judging by the wicked shine that remained in his dark orbs, glazed over with lust and mischief, she would find no mercy there.
"Lydia, dear…?" Her stepmother inquired, sounding quite perturbed. "Is everything okay in there? I heard… noises."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
"You are," comes the breathlessly growled reply. To him, she was, and the rest of the world's opinion on it could go suck on a wood chipper. But her pleading was not falling on deaf ears.
Quite the opposite, in fact. She was melting his already shaky resolve with a heat gun, and every time his hips thrust downwards he was shaking. She did want him, every part of it, and who was he to deny her? As her smooth calves clenched around the taut muscles of his thick neck and she thrust against him with vigor, he had pretty much made up his mind already.
"I want you," comes the crooning nail in the already rickety coffin. There's suddenly a sheen on his skin as if he were sweating…which he must be. She wasn't thinking clearly but now he wasn't either and being who he is, he wasn't about to start.
His movements were indeed harsh as if to prevent her from taking this scenario into her own hands. Denying her anything was not in his repertoire though, and he can't resist her pleading for long. She was grabbing him, her nails digging into his arms and causing delicious prickles of pain. "Lydia….." he breathes, his voice soaked with its own heated, gravelly plea.
His hand drifted downwards towards his cock, hips still working feverishly, tongue rimming dry lips. He was going to fuck her so hard she wouldn't walk straight for a week. He's almost at the point of clawing those sweet little underthings aside when…
"Lydia Dear….?"
Lydia freezes like a deer in headlights and so does he. The enthusiastic noise immediately ceases, and his eyes go wide. This was better than any scenario he could have imagined - not only was it a horrendous rush to almost get caught by Delia Deetz, she had no idea what he was doing to her poor daughter behind the door. It was pure, hedonistic, sick evil and it flooded his brain with sweet dopamine.
Lydia looks at him like a forlorn, terrified animal ready to panic, and is only met with jade glittering eyes that spoke volumes. No, she would receive no help here. Instead, a purely vile grin splits onto his face and his meaty palm pushes over her mouth, clamping down across her entire face nearly. She was so small under his broad mitts it was easy to do, and he leaned into her ear and whispered, "For old time's sake, babes," before leaning back up and gleefully answering Delia in Lydia's voice.
He once again effortlessly imitated her, throwing her voice. She sounded positively vicious and altogether done with Delia intruding on her. "Worshipping Satan with porn and a vibrator is a loud endeavor, Delia! Now kindly fuck off, I'm busy!"
Just to make sure Lydia isn't too upset, or at least to distract her from being so, his other hand is now very busily angling his cock against the slick forbidden entrance he'd denied himself for so long. He pushes forward ever so gently, working in just the tip, just to feel her strain and arch silently underneath him. Her muffled struggle is electric to him, as is the warm, living, pulling muscle of her inner parts as it clenches around just the very first inch or so of his dick. He's shuddering, but the wicked look on his face remains until they're both sure Delia is long gone. She feels like heaven. His eyes close briefly as he tries to scrape together any semblance of self-control.
Once they are both sure of Delia's embarrassed departure, he pulls out with an almost angry growl. "Not today babes. Soon." his hand pulls off her mouth, "I need t'be able to wreck ya without any worry 'bout the sex Gestapo."
Lydia's P.O.V.
"You are."
His panting insistence struck deep in her chest, right into the beating, pulsating organ that pumped her blood. It made perfect sense. Such a notion had never occurred to her. Of course, he saw her as a virgin- technicalities aside. She may as well have been compared to him. Despite her used status, he knew everything and she knew nothing. Lydia was reminded of this with sharp clarity every time they tumbled into one of these trysts.
A clammy, meaty palm slapping over the bottom half of her face upon Delia's intrusion inspired an internal panic, and the downright villainous grin distorting his dark features did nothing to help. Oh, God. Anything could happen now. The jig was up. He was far too riled, too gone in his excitement to behave for her. While she wasn't paying attention, her grip on the leash had slipped and now the dog was free to run wild.
"Worshipping Satan with porn and a vibrator is a loud endeavor, Delia! Now kindly fuck off, I'm busy!"
Fortunately, it seemed all he was interested in doing was pissing on the neighbor's doorstep. Thank everything that was good and holy in the universe. That could have been so much worse. He even managed to scare Delia off. In all reality, that wasn't too far off from what Lydia probably would have said given the freedom to speak, though she likely would have taken a less crude route. The despised redhead really should have been minding her own fucking business. Why was she sticking her upturned nose into Lydia's affairs instead of working on increasing her valium tolerance? Bitch.
There were more pressing matters to attend to. While he spoke, imitating her voice with obscene perfection, the blunt head of his cock pushed into her, forcing her sleek, tight walls open to accept it. Lydia writhed, sinking teeth into his filthy palm at the overbearing sensations. It was so strange and unusual, but undeniably wonderful. Too much, and yet nowhere near enough. The hand muffling her cries pressed her down punishingly into the cushions- thrilling her, pushing dark and forbidden imagery into the shadowier portions of her brain- while the other fisted his cock in a vice grip right beneath the tip, keeping himself from thrusting all the way home. Slow and overconfident, he jostled it within her, swirling little circles like a brush into paint, as if with the intent to open her further to him. It was torture.
But then, unexpectedly, he withdrew completely, freeing her mouth and collapsing down to growl out an explanation into her neck. Not today. It was disappointing, but knowing what she knew now, Lydia would not push him again. After all, wasn't it she who insisted that if he was going to seduce her, he would do it properly? Dates and romance and the like? She would let him have his virgin fantasy sans argument. He deserved it.
"Fine," she pouted, swallowing the pleas that she knew would get her what she wanted. "Just don't-" she shifted and her clit slid along the smooth flesh of his rigid cock for the first time, absolutely nothing between them. Oh, this was so much better. Lydia would never settle for humping with barriers ever again if this was what she was missing out on. "Don't stop."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Thank everything she was accepting, though her pouting tore at him just a little. She had no idea how difficult it was to hold himself back. It was a feat Betelgeuse wasn't just shamelessly having his way with her in the grossest fashion he could imagine right now. Upon begging him to continue, though, he huffs and drags his tongue across her petite earlobe. "Don't worry sugartits…I won't leave y'hangin'…." Oh, waitaminnit….she shifts, and oh fuck that was nice. Even though he wasn't inside of her, the flesh of her folds was caressing him, enveloping him nonetheless into warm, wet heat. His head nudges her clit and he shudders. That's real good.
No barrier was definitely better than anything they'd attempted previously and, upon chasing Delia off and reclaiming his prize, Betelgeuse is back to pursuing this at a less frantic pace. This was something that needed exploring, and indulging, and despite his overwhelming hunger he had backed off the peak of the challenge in this tempting situation. He could control this. He shifts their position easily then, pulling Lydia into his lap, tucking her against him so her legs splay out over his hips, rolling hers so that the crux of her heat is pushed against the throbbing ridge of his drooling cock. She can work at him as she likes, now, and he can suck at her tasty, pillowy soft breasts. His tangled mess of hair tickles under her chin, his broad hands wrapping around to grip her perfectly smooth little ass. Each cheek fits into his meaty palms perfectly, nearly, and he squeezes at her hungrily.
"Ride me, baby…show me how much y'wannit…."
Lydia's P.O.V.
"Just- mm- just a minute-" Awkward and smooth all at once, she pulled one leg in tight to her chest in order to slip the soaked cotton of her underthings off without having to disengage from his embrace. The stubborn elastic still clung tight around one thigh, but now she wouldn't have to bother with adjusting them and could free her hands for better endeavors, like scratching his back and tangling in his hair. Patiently, he devoured the hyper-sensitive peaks of her breasts, made so from his previous abuse, and all the other flesh around it.
Meanwhile, her hips twisted in a sweet, fluid rhythm, eager to prove herself to him. She could be sexy. She earned those horns, even though they weren't currently gracing the top of her head. Slick and easy, she slid up and down, fluctuating pressure as it suited her. One leg worked its way around his back to press her socked foot into the base of his spine, leading him into the dance, while the other hooked around his elbow to hug his bicep. Slim pale arms hugged him tight to her chest, encouraging the beast to feast until he was sated. A soft, flushed cheek found rest on the wiry pillow of his hair while she murmured encouragements. She wanted to make him feel good with words the way he always seemed to do to her. He made it look so easy.
"I want you to fuck me so bad," she confessed in bolder terms than she ever had before, pulling tight, working his thick cock along her small netherlips, puffy and glossed with precum and her own sap. "But I can wait for you… You're right… This is better."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Ah. That was better - no more annoying undies to keep trying to move aside. Smart girl. Lydia puts those carefully manicured nails of hers to good use, too, pulling very contented, very aroused noises from him whenever they run along his mossy back or through his disordered hair. He likes that, and if he had the capacity to achieve true goosebumps anymore her attention would have caused them. As it stands, it sends prickles of happy sensation along his skin and scalp. He likes that.
Muffled gruff noises emanate from the depths of the ghoul's throat into Lydia's chest as her hips tortuously twist, and dive and rise. His own push upwards, meeting her undulations with his own in careful counter motions, his jade eyes arched upwards to watch her writhe atop him. He hisses as the sensation of that little sock against his back. One of these days, he's going to do awful things to those adorable feet of hers - just like he promised himself when he first got a real good look at her from head to toe.
He lets go a filthy sort of growl as she murmurs to him, his clawed hands moving around to her hips in order to steady her as his thrusts became more insistent. He responds well to hearing that sort of thing from her apparently. "I'm gettin' that idea…." he chuckles, making a pleased noise as her cheek tucks into his filthy mass of hair, slurping at her poor, ruddy nipple further, mumbling around it, "But, baby, you ain't waitin' for me. I'm waitin' for you. I coulda done everything to ya way back in that Cave of Convenience or at the movies, or in yer basement, or right now but I think you like…." he moves his snake-like tongue up Lydia's collarbone, "….romancth n' stuffth."
Betelgeuse retracts the tongue since it makes him sound somewhat ridiculous and he grabs her just a little more fervently. He's not going to last long like this, but he's determined to get her there before he does. Not that it particularly matters, he has no refraction period so to speak and he could frottage her all day, he just likes watching her cum. In the meantime, he's making an absolute mess of her thighs and nether regions - apparently, he is quite the enthusiastic producer. "I wanna do it right for ya sugar. But when we do get there n' I've got you buttered up n' hot, rrrh….I'm gonna fuck that tight lil' pussy of yours till yer screamin'. My juice can keep the party goin' for days if that's how hot it makes yeh. All I wanna do is put this big fat cock in you, believe me."
Lydia's P.O.V.
You could not have, she wanted to argue just to be disagreeable, despite the knowledge that he was absolutely right. He could have had her seven ways from Sunday by now. Still, the truth remained that it was Lydia who was waiting for him, no matter how he saw it. Once upon a time, this was not the case, but things had very quickly changed. All she had to do was tilt her hips just right, beg him to poof them to his coffin, and bam. Problem solved. Marriage consummated. As it was, Lydia wanted him to have the dating experience too. He would never admit it, but he dug the "romance n' stuff" just as much as she did.
"Whatever you say, Romeo," she rasped into his hair petulantly, provoking a particularly vicious snarl of dissent, claws digging into her hips unforgivingly, teeth closing around the nipple that currently had his attention. Paired with his filthy, explicit dialogue- would she ever be able to talk like that?- it was enough to push her over the edge. The hand in his hair gripped tight, pushing her breast into the pleasant pain his teeth offered, while the other raked down his back. Were he alive, she would have left marks. Both legs locked tight around him, the muscles rigid and trembling. Painfully aware of her parents' conscious state, teeth dug into her bottom lip to muffle the sharp, euphoric cry that wanted to escape.
This orgasm seemed somehow more intense than many of her previous ones. It went on longer, dragged out by his precise thrusts, white-hot jolts of straight pleasure shooting from her core throughout her entire body. Still convulsing from the aftershocks, she attempted to pick up the slack she'd dropped mid-peak and get him there too, but she was so weak. Her movements were shaky, not nearly as smooth or refined as they had been just moments ago, and her grip was feeble. She always felt this way after a tumble with him. At least Lydia knew she could count on sleeping well tonight.
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Oh she was determined to be a brat, was she! Romeo had better be a nickname that doesn't stick around, and Betelgeuse lets her know exactly what he thinks about it. He bites her and gets a bit rough with her in response, just enough to sting, and is pleasantly surprised that it pushes her into an orgasmic state. She claws him and he lets go a guttural noise, his head tucking against her chest as she grabs him and rides out her peak as quietly as she can. It was hot as fuck that she had to muffle it – there's nothing more the ghost enjoys than getting away with something.
This one gets her good, too, it seems, as she's all sorts of trembling and weak after easing down. He's probably exhausted her yet again – their romps tend to be a particular kind of white-hot intensity. Betelgeuse isn't going to let the moment pass though, he takes advantage of her post-orgasmic state to claim his own. It only takes a tiny nudge of his cock with a hand, as she keeps trying to ride him he pushes into her hungrily on the down-stroke. Not too much, and certainly not all the way, just enough to work himself back into her tight, wet confines. She squeezes down on his dick in a sort of surprise, and that's all it takes – he pushes his face firmly between her breasts to huff out a low, muffled noise, explosively orgasming inside her.
This one's been building, and his peak is so much more intense than he could have predicted. He's worked up and she feels like heaven to him. She can feel his cock twitching and pulsing, enthusiastically filling her with quite a large load of cum – eventually, he pulls slowly back out, splattering the insides of her thighs and nether lips with an additional few weak bursts of sticky fluid. Even after all that, he could probably go again…but he's fairly sure she's had enough for the evening. He's thoroughly made a mess of her, at any rate.
After a moment of panting quietly, he admits, "Lyds….for a second I really thought Delia was gonna open that fuckin' door." And then he laughs, "Yer so lucky it was me answerin' and not some talentless hack."
Lydia's P.O.V.
"You could have just let me answer, you bully," Lydia panted, slumping against him in such a way as to guard her comforter against his mess. Their mess, really, but he was definitely the key contributor. Again, he'd only given her the tip, but it was enough. She was ready to pass out where she lay; nestled in his lap flush against him, his lazily drooling cock tucked safely out of the way, still hard as a velvet-covered rock and jutting against her ass cheek.
Dazed and sated, she snuggled into his neck as his essence continued to drip from her. She was absolutely filthy. A shower or something was in order before she could succumb to sleep the way she wanted to. Briefly, and not for the first time, she worried that he might be capable of impregnating her, but banished the thought as quickly as it came. As he liked to often remind her, he was a dead guy. As delicious as that sperm was, it was dead ectoplasmic goo and it wouldn't be fertilizing anything. No demonic babies for Lydia, thank you very much.
"I think," she whispered tiredly after a few moments, squirming in discomfort as the sliminess stopped being hot and started feeling gross, "this is what actually happened to the 'virgin' Mary."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Betelgeuse doesn't answer Lydia's first accusation. Where was the fun in letting her answer?! She got to torture Delia all the time. It was his turn, he earned it, he decided.
A cigarette was pulled from the ether as it usually was. He was an avid smoker, as none of that could do any damage to him anymore, but the vague sense of habitual comfort it provided was enough. Long ago the nicotine high had worn off its ability for much. But like a casual encourager to bad habits, he easily passes it to Lydia. At her commentary he almost startles, looking down at her with confusion at first.
And then he busts out laughing against her shoulder, trying to stay relatively quiet about it and nearly failing. "I'm fuckin' makin' baby Jesus, am I? I'm ready to bring a new Lord n' Savior into the world babes. Do I get to ride a donkey?!"
He notices her discomfort, and pats her on her soft backside, encouragingly. "Yeah yeah. Shower. You go do that. I'm getting your computer and I get to play 21 questions with these photos Lyds. I saw a clown in there and I know that clown and I wanna know things. Like how he got so up n' personal with my wife."
Lydia's P.O.V.
"Fine, " Lydia sighed in mock exasperation, crept from his lap carefully so as to keep any mess from dripping onto her blankets, and took it upon herself to retrieve the laptop and type in her password. She knew he was liable to break it in a temperamental fit if she refused him access. It opened right back up to where they were before he decided she needed a spanking; the file explorer showing the folder that held all of her photos from the Neitherworld. There were a little more than two-hundred for him to filter through, so that would keep him busy.
"Don't delete anything or I'll be really mad," she warned, shooting him a stern look before making her departure for the bathroom. Like the closet, the door to that room was left open as well. Cum trickled down her thighs in slow, sticky rivulets with each step, making her walk to the shower rushed and clumsy. It was unfair of him to deny fucking her only to leave her feeling very fucked. Jerk.
"He was a total creep," she called back over the splash of water hitting porcelain, clearly referring to the clown. "Gave me some line about 'teaching me to juggle' and tried to feel me up without even offering to buy me a drink. Bum." The heavy sound was muted some when she dipped her head under the stream, drenching her sex-mussed mane. Lydia liked her showers hot. Aromatic steam began to drift from the room as she lathered up her loofah and started to scrub.
Well aware of her husband's explosive jealous streak, she continued on before he had a chance to properly lose his shit. "Don't worry. He only touched my knee, and Trixie got rid of him before I could punch him in the nose and find out if it was fake or not."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
The reading glasses went back on as Betelgeuse clicked through the photos, pleased that Lydia has acquiesced to his weird obsession with her little "trip with brother Donny". She catches not just one, but a number of photos of Donny giving her quite a look down from his seat in the little beetle. Betelgeuse knows that face all too well. Gross fuck.
"I dunno how to delete anything on here babes," the ghost replies, distractedly, though he catches her stumble away to the bathroom with some very gooey, glistening inner thighs and smirks evilly from behind her back on the bed. That was a nice little view and satisfied, he went back to rummaging through her photos.
At her description of the clown, he grunts. "I've tried punching him before," he remarks, speaking over the volume of her shower, "don't do any good, his nose squeaks and he just laughs like it's funny." He grumbles, then, "Good on ole Trix. She probably considers it a favor, might come to collect one from ya at some point, be prepared for that. She's the fuckin' queen of quid-pro-quo. You think me an' Donny are bad, that girl is a trip. Also, just so we're on the same page, I'm going to inflate that clown with the most helium I can find by shovin' a hose up his ass an' attach him by his shriveled little dick to a sandworm."
He hasn't remarked exactly what plan he has for Donny yet. That usually means it's serious when he doesn't have a detailed, precise death or destruction plan for somebody who's crossed him. He gets to the section with all the Dante's girls. Most of them are fairly benign, but he catches a few of them with expressions that are …. a little too affectionate towards his wife, too. This he doesn't voice to Lydia because he's distracted thinking about her mud-wrestling them in some way and soon forgets about how the girls may not be so thoroughly benign for her to associate with.
Eventually, he seems satisfied enough. He was still going to kill at least two parties involved or torture them, or both. Also, he makes a mental note that Lydia isn't permitted around the Neitherworld without him….potentially too dangerous. Steam wafts in from the bathroom and he tilts his head up vaguely. Whatever products she uses makes her smell so very alluring, and he has vague imaginings of pouncing on her in the shower. Damn that girl. She's proving highly addicting.
Lydia's P.O.V.
"He was drunk," Lydia defended the clown half-heartedly, ringing excess moisture from her hair before stepping out of the shower, patting herself dry, and slipping into her bathrobe. It was long, lightweight, and silken. She loved the way the sleeves billowed. It made her feel like Morticia Addams. Claire would sometimes call her "Morticia", meaning it as an insult, but in actuality, Lydia could only hope to one day aspire to that level of iconic Gothic beauty. Wet hair coiled into a black towel atop her head, she joined him back on the bed.
"He probably doesn't even remember. I'm sure you've done far worse things while drunk than hitting on a random bar girl." Lydia didn't like the idea of the clown meeting a grisly demise simply because he dared to try and score with her. Going forward, she would have to be more selective with her casual savagery to others in front of Betelgeuse. He had proven himself a proud, vengeful being. Clearly, any disrespect or derisions of her person were something that he took personally.
Ordinarily, Lydia would slather her entire body with cocoa butter before going to sleep but was well aware that her husband would only find this provocative, and so stuck to massaging the fragrant, off-white cream onto her legs and thighs.
"Are you staying the night?" She queried offhandedly, admiring his glasses as he gave her photos one last patient look over, curiosity apparently sated. "You can if you want, but fair warning, my alarm goes off at five a.m."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
The ghoul simply grunted. She wasn't wrong, it's just that this was different. Either Betelgeuse cared the whole way or he didn't care at all, and that's how it went with him. He never went halves on anything, and his brand new wife was no exception. Besides, he knew what she didn't: if he, or Donny, or the Dante's girls hadn't been with her, one of the dead would have probably made her theirs in some way or another – and Scuzzo has a bad habit of not respecting any sort of no as an answer. Then again, neither did he, generally. They'd be best of friends, probably, if they weren't constantly trying to outdo each other. And, in his esteemed opinion, Scuzzo was an asshole.
He gave her a glance over the rims of his glasses, before sliding her laptop closed and whisking them away. "Mm, 'm gonna stay here till ya fall asleep at least. Any longer and I'm liable t'do things to ya," he teases, giving her a real good oogle. She looked vampy in that silk robe, and he liked it far too much. It clung to her sweet, youthful curves and dipped between her breasts fashionably. "I'm liable to do 'em to ya now, too."
In a breath, he's in some form of pajamas – similar to the ones he wore while they messed around in his coffin. They too are silk, a sort of maroon number that doesn't fit him altogether correctly. And just like everything else he wears, they seem sort of oddly out of place and time. "Speakin' of hot outfits, babes, where'd you get that sexy cobweb number in yer pictures anyway? Donny didn't have anything to do with that, did he?"
Lydia's P.O.V.
The credits were rolling, signifying the end of Freaks, but Lydia went ahead and restarted it knowing full well she was liable to pass out before soaking in any of the plot. She'd have to watch it again when she actually had some energy. For now, it would serve as adequate white noise. A stick of incense- lavender for relaxation- was lit and placed next to the bed and Lydia turned off all the lamps, leaving nothing but the blue light from her television to cast a dim glow about the room.
"No more doing things tonight," she specified firmly, smirking in a way that said she would very much like to keep doing things, "or I'll end up sleeping past my alarm." Lydia wasn't about to let something as trivial as a sexual relationship drag down her impeccable GPA.
"Hold that thought," she answered his question without really answering at all. The house was quiet. Delia and her father appeared to be out for the count. Minutes after leaving Betelgeuse alone in her room, she returned with an extremely happy grim trailing behind her. The panting beast immediately hopped up to the foot of her queen-size mattress and settled into sleep, the corners of his jowls upturned in a content dog smile. It was quite obvious that this was not his first time sleeping in her bed.
"Okay," Lydia finished with a sigh, finally sliding into bed- and her husband's open arms. The towel that held her hair crumpled to the floor, leaving her still somewhat damp tresses to settle and curl on the pillow and his arm. "Ginger made it for me," she mumbled tiredly in his chest, heavy eyes already shut. "Made me breakfast, too. I helped them clean up the kitchen. Can we go to the next movie night? Jacques said 'zey will always be welcoming to me,'" she quoted with a smile, attempting her best French accent. "You have the best roommates."
Betelgeuse's P.O.V.
Lydia, as it turns out, is a gal after his own heart. Countless years he's spent watching the same show till he fell asleep, or repeated the same movie, just for the white noise. Sometimes, too, being the world's most eligible bachelor (see: Neitherworld's most wanted…see: a garbage person no one wanted to get close to…see: gross shlub) was quite lonely, and that was the unspoken-to-anyone remedy he often employed. It was that or take up company with Donny, and he hated Donny. His roommates were a last resort.
As Lydia sweeps gracefully around the room turning off lights and lighting the incense, he watches her. Again, he was transfixed by the way she moved, and the billowing robe did nothing to curtail his intense interest. He grunts, at her dismissal of his overtures. "Alarms. Who needs 'em?" he waves that away, encouraging further bad behavior on her part. The look she gives him indicates he won't get anywhere, despite her interest, and he works deeper into her pillows with a huff.
She's rapidly off, too, to places unknown after that. In the meantime, he attempts to reason with his boner that's busily straining at the front of his pajamas. You'll get it later. Knock it off. Go away. Fuck you. You've had enough. She's gonna sleep and you're gonna settle down, asshole. Nothing works, so he flumps a pillow into his lap in exasperation and waits for Lydia's return.
Not long and she's back with that drooling mutt in tow. The dog takes a place at the end of her bed that he's really too big for and sheepishly gives Betelgeuse the side-eye as if apologizing. The ghoul makes a disapproving noise but relents. Clearly, this is some sort of dog-and-girl bedtime arrangement. Besides, Lydia was wrapping herself up against him and that distracted him from any ill-will burbling in his brain. He wraps his bulky arms around her slight frame, practically enveloping her smaller body as she presses to his chest. He's a little soft, always, in places, but surprisingly hard muscle lurks underneath and makes for a very restful sort of surface. His chin tucks above her head, and his eyelids droop. She can feel the usual wiry sort of jittery energetic tension leave him, and with a long sigh through his nose, he seems to finally relax.
"Mhm," Betelgeuse replies and promises himself he's not going to feel up her very naked thigh underneath her robe. He wants to. Very, very badly. "We can go any movie-night y'want. And you can think that all y'want, too. I've lived with 'em too long. They're so….friendly. Eugh. Makes me wanna puke," she smells good. He tilts his head downwards, huffing a breath into her hair. "They've almost ruined my reputation more'n once. And they've never cooked me breakfast, either." Probably because he never once deserved it. He's never deserved any of their kindness.
Slowly, he squirms a thick thigh between hers, mischievously. He leaves it there, though, unmoving and seems to settle that way. He could get used to this.