AN: Before I start this story, I've essentially got to tell you another story. Maybe, I've got to let you get to know me a little bit, if you don't already know me.
Sometimes, in our lives, we let people and situations manipulate us. We let them make us do things that we really don't want to do, and we let them make us act in ways that we really don't want to act. In the past, I've definitely been as guilty of this as anyone else. One way in which I've manifested this has been in letting certain people and situations manipulate my writing. I wrote some stories, in the past, that I wanted to write a certain way. Instead of writing them that way, though, I let them be changed. I'm taking back my stories. I wanted to start with this one.
As you read this story and, in particular, the first two chapters of this story, you're going to recognize the similarities it has with "Of A Certain Age." That story did not go the way that I wanted it to go. I'm leaving that story up, for those who love it as it is, and I'm bringing you a different story that happens to share some of the same ideas. Beyond the cast of characters, a few settings, a couple of beloved ideas, and some starting points laid out in these first two chapters (which I really wrote before I allowed myself to be manipulated, because the third chapter is where things already started to go south), you'll see it's a different story. It's, hopefully, going to be the story that I wanted to tell in the first place.
I have rewritten and changed some things in these first two chapters. If you read "Of a Certain Age," you'll find them familiar, but not exactly the same.
If you have not read "Of A Certain Age," and you're just joining me here, then this will all be absolutely new to you, and I welcome you!
The first chapter is not a sober chapter. It's also got some smut in it, so be aware of that.
If it needs to be said, I do not own anything from the Walking Dead and I do not own its characters. I'm just playing with them. All I own from the story is the plot and my personal characters.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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She wasn't that kind of woman.
And she reminded herself of that while, in her vodka-soaked haze, she burrowed through her purse looking for her keys.
And she found them, at the bottom of the purse she was semi-surprised to find that she still had after the night that she'd had so far.
She didn't do these kinds of things.
And she reminded herself of that as he skipped turning on the light, and as she found the mouth of a rugged stranger in a clash of tongues and teeth—a rugged stranger whose tongue tasted of whiskey and cigarettes.
She was always a good girl...too good and shy to take a risk.
And she reminded herself of that as he deepened the kiss, pushing her body against the refrigerator and knocking several magnets to the floor to scatter across the tile. And as her body, hungry for what it had done without for so long, responded to him on its own. She ground her hips into him, her fingers tangled in his hair, and her voice coming out in soft moans at the prospective pleasure of a rugged stranger.
She was respectable – more respectable than the kinds if women who did these things that she would never dare to do.
And she reminded herself of this as she pulled him through the house, to her bedroom. As she guided him right to the place that he normally needed at least five dates to see—and hardly anyone ever lasted five dates. And she reminded herself of this as she pushed him toward the bed, and pushed him down on the mattress, abandoning verbal communication entirely.
She was too old for things like this and far too modest. Her body was past its prime and not to be displayed.
And she reminded herself of this as she ripped her dress over her head and struggled with her bra, cursing to herself about the manmade contraption while the rugged stranger lost the clothes he donned. She wrestled her way out of the clinging leggings she wore to keep the dress from being too revealing for a woman her age. And she reminded herself that she was to be ashamed of her nakedness, just before she found her way out of her underwear and stood before the rugged stranger in all the glory that her forty-seven years had to display for him.
Her mind felt so soaked and saturated by the drinks she'd had, so fuzzy and distant and not her own, that she might as well have been dreaming. The rugged stranger in front of her, on the bed, was drunk enough that he shook his head, from time to time, as though he were checking to see if he was dreaming. Holding himself in his hand, stroking himself as he looked at her, he might have been a mirage or a vision – nothing more substantial than any image that she drew to her mind at night when she searched out, desperately, her own release for the buildup of tension.
She wasn't the kind of woman who slept with a man that she didn't know. The kind of woman who didn't ask his name…or didn't remember it.
When he stood up, in front of her, she ran her hands over his arms – muscular, strong arms like she hadn't felt under the touch of her fingertips in so long.
She wasn't aggressive.
And she reminded herself of that when she dove at him, meeting him once again in the clash of tongues and teeth, and when she forced the kiss to be so deep that he pulled away slightly from instinct and need to survive.
The only sounds between them were reduced to grunts, groans, moans. She couldn't remember his name, and she wasn't sure if he'd ever told her what it was. She was almost certain, as well, that he couldn't remember hers if she'd ever even given it to him.
She never did these kinds of things.
And she reminded herself of that when his strong arms moved her to the bed, and when his tongue and his teeth trailed down her neck and scraped and licked at her skin. She moved her body into him, against him, searching him out.
For all she wanted at this point, she could have done this herself. She could have sought out the release without even needing him there, but he was there and as long as he was there – whether he was real or a mirage – she might as well make the best of him.
When he took her nipple into his mouth, biting down on it, she cried out with surprise and with the welcomed feeling of someone else, some other entity, spending time with the breasts that she'd begun to think were merely to be for decoration, unseen by anyone but herself, for the rest of her life.
"OK?" His gruff voice growled out in the darkness.
"Mmm…mmm…hmmm…" She mumbled back, unable to come up with words at the moment, and unable to put together sentences for all the thoughts that she had circling around and pin balling through her mind.
She didn't take charge in bed.
And she reminded herself of that as desperation flooded through her – desperation to be touched and desperation to feel the things that she ached to feel – things that she was almost beginning to fear that she'd forgotten entirely.
She pushed him, even though she knew that she would be embarrassed about it later – when the vodka haze left her more able to discern if this was real or an elaborate dream – downward, coaxing him down her body and hoping he would serve her and do what she desperately wanted him to do.
And she whimpered when, apparently understanding her forceful and desperate plea, he suckled her and teased her, stroking her with his finger. He moved her legs up over his shoulders so that she could feel his muscles move under her, and he could have clearer access to the very core of her.
She was reserved and she was quiet…the shyest person that she knew.
And she reminded herself of that when she cried out with her orgasm and clung to the blankets that bunched up around her with the movement of her body, thrusting her hips up, demanding that the rugged stranger taste more of her, take more of her, and not stop giving her the pleasure that she was seeking. The desire to find the pleasure, even for a night, was what had driven her out of her comfort zone, and out of her shell, and into the smoky bar with the thought of, first, filling her glass and later filling the void that sometimes felt it would eat her alive.
She might have fallen asleep when the haze of the vodka mingled with the sweet relaxation that followed the tremors that shook her body. Her head swam on the bed beneath it, and she moaned out the sweet and exhausting satisfaction of having found what she was searching for, if only for the moment. She was reminded, though, at the gentle nip of teeth on her skin and the warm wetness that returned to her too long ignored nipples, when the stranger drew them into his mouth, that the dream wasn't over yet and the rugged stranger was seeking more from her – more that she wanted to give him.
She wasn't the kind of woman to be reckless and casual.
And she reminded herself of that when he muttered, his voice muffled by the cloud shadowing her senses, something about a condom. Her mind told her it was something she was supposed to listen to, and something she was supposed to be concerned about, and something she was supposed to answer. His tone indicated clearly, even if her brain didn't take the time or the effort to understand the words, that there was to be concern there, but she had no concerns at the moment.
And she swam up, answering his question only by seeking his mouth out with hers. She found his jaw, with the rough prickle of stubble leading her further on her quest, and then she finally found his lips as she found, somewhere inside her, the strength and presence of mind to move her body again to meet his. She moved her hips to meet his, and she moved the hand, not digging its fingertips into the toned muscles of his back, down to find the part of him that was seeking the same release that she had already found once. She guided him to warm, wet core of her that still throbbed from the delicious care he'd taken with her only moments before.
She wasn't the kind of woman who even knew what to say in bed.
And she reminded herself of that when he thrust into her, the quick sting and threat of cramp followed from something so unfamiliar, something so nearly forgotten. And she cried out words that came out with her voice, rasping and dry and almost not her own, begging him to fuck her hard and with determination. Begging him to move his body for the good of them both.
And when he moved his body, she responded. The pain dulling into a sweet feeling of friction and fullness. Another of the feelings that she'd imagined she would never feel again because she wasn't the kind of woman who would seek them out from just anyone, and so few people seemed interested in working for them anymore. Time was passing quicker these days for her, and for everyone else, it seemed, and the sense of urgency that everyone carried with them made it harder for a woman like her to find anything worth having and, especially keeping.
So, she had learned to do without.
But for the moment she was drinking in her fill. She was moving without thinking, her body taking over with a mind of its own. She was falling into an animal rhythm with a man whose name she didn't know, and she was dancing a primitive dance that everyone knew, even before they learned it. Like riding a bicycle, it was something that she hadn't forgotten – no matter how long it had been.
And when she found, for the second time, the glory of the sweet feeling of oblivion that she'd sought out, her mind felt even more unaware, and even more like she was floating on a cloud, and she was sure, for at least a moment, that this must all be a dream. The rugged stranger, the glory of tension leaving her body, and the distant feeling now of hands and mouths searching each other, and of skin seeking out skin. All of it must be a dream.
She wasn't the kind of woman that took a man home that would leave before the sun came up.
But when she floated down from her feelings, like a feather drifting down in the breeze, she found herself rolling – her body feeling distant and foreign and glorious – around in the soft and familiar blankets of her bed. Her head sought out her pillow without even allowing her eyes to open and to verify that it was all just the sweet dream of her subconscious mind seeking out what it needed, sometimes, even when she swore to it that it didn't need it all – that she could do without.
And she might have found, when she woke from the dream, that she had simply woken enough to soothe herself and to answer, herself, her demanding body's requests. She might wake to find that she'd imagined, and nothing else, the answer to her body's need with the vision of a rugged stranger.
She wasn't the kind of woman that slept with a man she didn't know.
She didn't do those kinds of things.
She wasn't that kind of woman.
But sometimes, she forgot.