Author's Note: Smut. Smutty smut smut.

… … …

The percussive screaming from her phone cut short and took his cover along with it. A moment more, and he could have closed her closet door.

All the way, anyway.

He'd felt the resistance, the threat of an imminent creak that would've given him away if he pulled it completely shut. And he also heard—felt, that if he pushed back against the thick row of clothes on metal hangers to sneak himself behind them, that noise would've given him away, too.

He flinched when he made abrupt eye contact with the Raggedy Anne doll that hung off Helga's bedroom door through the two-inch crack. Then edged back once the doll—and the door—swung back.

Arnold held his breath with a prayer and watched as a sliver of Helga's bare feet entered the room. Then heard—sensed all the way through the closet floor—the unceremonious thud of a full body drop and the bouncing squeaks from her mattress. Then a gruff sigh, then nothing.

He exhaled at last, shaky but quiet. At least that time when he saw her he hadn't gotten another eyeful.

Not that he'd need it. That image had already seared itself timelessly into his mind, he was jittery enough with heart-racing adrenaline from just the fear of getting caught, and quite honestly, the sight of her left him utterly horrified.

And hard. Holy shit was he hard.

In a light-headed moment he managed to grasp onto one truth: that would not help his situation.

Arnold took a deep, trembling breath, determined to bring it down. Then again. Then thought of the time he accidentally caught his Grandma in the bath; a suppressed memory used only in emergencies.

That did it.

Arnold's head fell back as he gave a rattled sigh, the full reality of his predicament prickling his skin all over like pins and needles; leaving him incensed and incredulously terrified.

Jesus goddamn Christ.

He couldn't even believe this sort of situation was happening to him.

And, he thought with a bite of anger, dammit, why was Helga even here? No—why didn't Phoebe know she was still home?! How couldn't she have known that?!

Arnold rubbed at his sweaty temples and clenched his stomach to help slow his breathing and accusatorial thoughts. No, that isn't fair. Honestly…if anyone could dip out of family plans and check out while keeping to themselves, it'd be Helga.

Okay. Okay, then—think. There has to be a way out of this. Alive, anyway.

He pulled out his phone, unlocked it and dimmed the light setting in the dark. Then gave a quick thankful inhale that he thought to silence the damn thing while he was at it.

Shuffling sounds and the squeak of bedsprings sent a cold shiver through him.

Was she getting up? Wait—maybe she was getting ready to leave? God, yes please… But wait, he thought, as he felt the mass of her clothing press against his side. If she was getting ready to leave, wouldn't she need to get dressed first?

Arnold felt himself go pale in the dark.

Oh. Shit.

Okay, wow. No, don't. Stay cool. Breathe. Breathe. Quietly. That's it. Okay.

She has dressers, so there's gotta be clothing in them too, right? Who's to say if she got dressed she'd necessarily grab something from the closet?

Yeah, he thought in the silence that passed, wiping nervous sweat off his forehead and into his hairline. That tracks.

When the mattress squeaked again the pulse in his ears nearly drowned out the sound of her footsteps padding across the floor. He couldn't believe that he was actually hoping in some way—stupidly—that whatever Helga did next wouldn't require her being dressed.

He struggled to stamp out the stirring he felt from that implicated logic, despite the panic that threatened to encroach.

Jesus, man.

As Helga's bed squeaked again with the drop of her body weight, Arnold thanked his luck and looked down at the phone he held dumbly in his hand—that's it. Set up a diversion. Perfect.And—maybe Helga really would stay put for a bit, maybe take a nap or something? He could hope.

But first, he thought with a guilty pang, he should at least send a quick text to Gerald to tell that him couldn't find Phoebe's control module. Opening his messages, he reassured himself that if there was anyone who could score another shot at a big science scholarship, it was her.

Just as Arnold's thumb hovered over the screen he heard an odd noise and stilled.

Then heard it again, and as his thoughts scattered over its characteristics to find anything he could associate to it, it happened again, louder, and realized Helga was…humming. Breathing? But not normally. The sound of subtly compressed bedsprings slowly shifted.

His brow pinched incredulously. Was she OK? What was—

A gasp, followed by a soft, indulgent moan broke his train of thought.

All thought.

And another, shuddery and lip-bitten, rushed the truth at him with force so strong it constricted his lungs.

Oh. My God.

Helga, was…

Another sound, utterly feminine, like a swooning whimper that was wanting and helpless, shot a bolt of arousal to his cock so hard his head spun in the dark.

In the swirling fog that ensued he couldn't believe there was any way someone like Helga could make such a hot, sweet sound— even in private.

It took real effort to reorient himself through the flushed, half-lidded haze that'd overtaken him as her self-pleasure flooded his ears, each sound lingering even longer in his mind after she made them. To think beyond the heat burning his face. And lower.

A firm tug from the anchor of principle at the bottom of him knocked him out of it, resurfacing a wave of humiliating self-reproach and the daunting prospect of getting out of here in one piece.

Don't listen.

Just—ignore it.

Text Gerald. Get a diversion.

His fingers hovered over the screen, but, despite having conjured the words he needed before, when Helga let out one of the dirtiest groans he'd ever heard and followed it with a soft, shivery inhale, he completely blanked.

Arnold pinched his brow to try and summon what it was he needed to text again, but his dumb brain fed him distractedly stupid alternatives.

Gerald help she won't stop moaning.

I need you to come. I mean, don't come. I mean, shit.

Squeezing his eyes shut to concentrate, a clear, constructive thought finally surfaced.

Be less horny before you text Gerald.

Right. If he wanted to get out alive he needed to be sharp. Or, at the very least, sharper.

If adolescence had taught Arnold anything, it was that he was not the brightest when he was hard.

Ignoring how painfully hot and untouched his cock felt, he pocketed his phone, covered his ears, and closed his eyes with a determined grimace.

Grandma-getting-out-of-the-bath Grandma-getting-out-of-the-bath

Just as the memory was working at bringing him down, a loud, drawn moan broke through the barrier of his buffered ears and intruded on his thoughts.

You know who else was in a bath today? Helga.

He was stiffening again before he could even think to stop the conjured images that swam through his mind, how that naked version of her in the hall would've looked, rising out of the tub, palming handfuls of achingly soft-looking breasts with soapy suds.

He knew better than to let the thoughts race, but off they went, dragging him behind them in a daze.

Features he recalled with unseemly detail filled him from the bottom up, cataloged from that shocked, adrenalized stare of his that had ground time down to a halt and absorbed all his powers of attention.

Details that no one had to guess; tall, lithe, long legs. And others, seldom observed or hidden away under clothes that made no effort to reveal her figure, shattering his image of her as the light from the hallway window cast her in a partial silhouette.

The length of her neck, elegant with her hair swept away from it for a change. The parts of her that bounced when her hip jutted out irritably.

Arnold bit his lip and shuddered, his hands falling down to his sides, closing absently into fists.

That squeezable waist.

And, below that…

A hiss, followed by a particularly hot moan, then another, masked the sound of Arnold hitting his forehead against the wall of her closet with a suppressed groan.

Then bit his bottom lip again, harshly, at the surging heat that had bloomed all the way through him, radiating from the blazing furnace of his horribly hard, trapped, leaking cock.

Okay, this.

Was not helping.

Arnold ground his forehead against the surface, cool against his flushed, sweaty face as he burned in the dark.

He brought a hand to his mouth, his breathing too shaken and heavy not to smother, and grimaced loathsomely, feeling like such a pervert, for protecting his privacy while he violated hers.

God though, the sound of her panting, her needy whimpering through the door. Christ. His own forbidden need, not for freedom from his jeans or mere touch, but for force, for pressure, for his dick to be gripped and squeezed.

He knew he should cover his ears again but stalled, gritting through the wave of that sensation. Each heartbeat flared that want like a throbbing pain, tight and hot and demanding, like an actual, pulsing burn he couldn't even press down or nurse with his hand, with anything.

Helga burst with a soft, urgent grunt, then again, hotly, and Arnold had to smother a groan behind his hand when the sounds scaled to a punctuated series of desperate, keening wails he could feel in the head of his cock.

Arnold barely registered the sting from his clenching fist as she came, fuming.

But thank God, he thought, tremors of tension and unmet need wracking through him as his breath caught in the midst of her satisfied sighs.

Thank God he lasted.

He'd been here against his will, trapped in an unreal situation, and despite all that'd been thrown at him, he could still at least walk away with the knowledge that he hadn't done anything that would make him lose sleep over it.

And he could take a breather, could finally calm himself down, send out those texts, work on getting out of here, and—

Arnold's heart stopped at the soft gasps, and the deep, throaty groans that followed. But her not being done with herself wasn't what sent him reeling, necessarily.

It was from a different kind of noise, that he just realized had been absent until now.

Lip-bitten and buckling, Arnold's breath forced through his nostrils in harsh, ragged spurts at the wet, slick sounds she made as she fucked herself.

And, he in turn, could do nothing more than roast alive in that small, airless space and smother the noises he tried not to make.

Don't jerk off, came the feverish thought, somehow, on the edge of delirium as his torched cock wept and strained and begged for relief.

You can not jerk off.

You are not going to listen in on a girl while jerking off in her closet like a creep.

You can NOT—

"Uhn! God, I need you so fucking bad…"

Arnold's eyes blew wide, cock spasming at Helga's voice, unrecognizably broken and pleading as it whined through the air, babbling to herself.

And didn't stop, with words and thirst he missed from his ex before they finally split up a few months ago.

Their long and steady, 'let's take it slow' relationship that eventually left him feeling utterly frustrated, among other things; his expectations set up and dashed repeatedly by coy baiting and unexamined hang-ups on her part. Either way.

Arnold Shortman, though not inexperienced, was still, in the traditional sense, a virgin.

And Helga, who was not mild, coy or quiet, least of all now, positively scorched his ears with the sounds of her filth. Not just from the sopping noises her pussy made as she fucked herself in practically the same room as him, but from words that made his eyes roll back when he heard them. Words like please, and more, and feels so fucking good, that she said to whoever it was she imagined doing her.

But when she loudly groaned, "I need you to FUCK me," it broke him.

Lip curled and absolutely glowering with want, Arnold glared at his life-long tormentor in his mind's eye, spreading herself open as she writhed on her bed with that pleading, impatient need he could hear and feel so much like his own.

Like the rush at the top of a roller coaster just before it plunged, or air ionizing before a storm, nothing could stop his hand. Not guilt or fear or better judgment, or any of the thoughts that lead his resistance until now.

In brisk, jagged movements, Arnold undid his jeans and released his hard, drooling cock, braced his hand against the wall, and beat himself off in the hottest fucking rush he'd ever experienced.

And strained to hear every single goddamn thing he could through the closet door, in his mind fucking those moans, those more's and those obscenely wet noises out of her as she gripped him back.

He reveled in her volume, she'd always been loud—in the way she lost herself to a throaty, warbling cry as she smothered her sobbed gibberish and came again.

And, his eyes rolling back, imagined those broken Aah-like sounds that died muffled deaths over and over again were her shouting his name.

Roaring silently into his hand with his eyes squeezed shut, he erupted with the hardest, most pent up orgasm he'd ever had in his entire life.

When he finally came down he felt brainless and buzzed, trembling with light electric shocks, and was surprisingly weak, like the muscles in his body had all seized up until giving out.

It was incredible.

Until, of course, the creeping edges of clarity began sinking in, and while there was too much to unpack from this whole ordeal than he could begin to grasp in the moments that followed, Arnold's jaw slowly dropped as guilt-ridden realization and crushing shame overwhelmed him.

Arnold swayed, at a complete loss with himself.

As the implications of all the transgressions he'd sworn against committing and did mounted in his mind, he realized something that was utterly horrifying.

Even though he could hardly see in the dark, save the thin beam of light that ran up his torso from the crack in the door, his hands and jeans were mostly dry, but could smell it, that salty alkaline. He had lost control and, without a shadow of a doubt, completely splattered the wall and floor of her closet with his cum.

Dear.

God.

He should have just jumped out the window while he had the chance.

He started when Helga's phone went off, and time suspended, crawled maliciously in the seconds, or eons she took before heaving an annoyed groan and listened, giving only curt responses that he lacked context for.

"Are you serious? Ugh. Okay, okay, keep your pants on—and don't break anything. I'll be right over."

Arnold's eyes widened. She was actually leaving, and paving the way for his desperately desired escape—that is, of course, after she'd gotten dressed.

He gulped, waiting for his potential and honestly, earned demise with bated breath.

Instead, after the mattress squeaked, he heard the sliding of brusquely opened dresser drawers, and the soft sounds of clothing being whipped out and fitted.

And, at last, the heavy thuds of her combat boots stomped out the door, down the hall, rumbled down the stairs… and the front door slammed shut.

Arnold breathed—panted, to his surprise, and loudly, like locked-up nerves scrambling for release. Then eventually stilled, not knowing quite what to do with himself.

Whether it was because he felt like he didn't deserve freedom, or because it'd provided a source of safety he wasn't quite ready to leave behind, he couldn't bring himself to leave the closet just yet.

He did, however, turn the flashlight on his phone, and paled at the mess he left. At least he'd somehow missed her clothes, he thought, with a fresh wave of shame.

God, he couldn't believe he did this. Any of it. Who the hell was he? What kind of freak just cums all over some girl's closet?!

The same one that whacked off like some deranged voyeur as they listened inona girl's most private moments without her knowledge or consent, came the viciously accurate reply.

Arnold just stared at the mess in a numbed daze as he fully absorbed the enormity of this new fact about him.

I should have just surrendered and let her kill me.

Sacrificing not one but both of his socks, because of course he'd really let loose, he wiped the areas he'd defiled clean. To the eye, anyway. He wished he had cleaning products, but also didn't know how much time he had until she got back.

Then realized it wouldn't have mattered even if he'd scrubbed every inch of her closet with bleach. It'd always be secretly tainted by this.

By him. Fuck.

He turned his soiled socks inside out, pocketed them with a disgusted wince, put his phone in the other pocket and, at last, opened the closet door.

And staggered on the spot.

In a foggy haze he remembered learning that sex had a smell of its own; a mix of…fluids, and scents, from both or more partners. It didn't have to be strong, but it was there. He could smell his own, of course—all guys could. Some even complained about it.

But he was in no way prepared for the unmistakably warm, tantalizing, feminine waft he got when he stepped out the closet door.

Or how lightheaded it'd make him. And, sure enough, hard.

Again.

Arnold reeled from frustration.

She wasn't even here, and she was still managing to torture him?!

And even though he'd attempted to keep a level head through this whole ordeal, that was it. In a dizzying moment of overwhelmed disbelief, he threw out his hands and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Ooh, COME ON! CAN I GET A FUCKING BREAK—"

He was cut off abruptly when he made the mistake of actually looking at her bed, just a few feet away, and saw something so obscenely explicit that it burned him to the core and left him weak-stomached.

On the bed, on a towel, which was not dry, Helga, in her abrupt rush, had left the dildo she'd used earlier, and itwas positively covered with a creamy, semi-white layer of slick juices.

And Arnold, biting his lip and staring despite himself, shoved down the shamefully intrusive, mortifying, despicably hot temptation to go over and taste her off it.

He tore himself away from the illicit sight and a part of himself he swore had never been there, and marched out, unblinking and stone-faced.

Disconnected, he felt like he was watching someone else's hands wrap his flannel sideways over his hips as he stomped down the stairs to obscure his goddamn, fucking erection in public.

In his stupor, he took two, three, four attempts to shove the key back in its designated stoop-crack. And, leaving with a quick, stiff walk, pulled out his phone and gathered himself enough to finally shoot off an apology text.

He had several missed messages—the first asking if he'd had any luck, the other giving him updates.

But the last ones from Phoebe's phone stopped him in his tracks.

Hey man, it's Gerald. Would you believe how much of a genius my girl is? She managed to jerry rig a replacement outta my phone and her presentation went off without a hitch! Fingers crossed!

I mean sure, I'm out a brand new iPhone now, but hey. She's worth it.

Anyway, thanks for trying man. Hope it wasn't too much trouble!

With slow, mechanical movements, Arnold shut off his phone, put it back in his pocket, stepped off the busy sidewalk into an alley, and screamed silently into his hands.