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apple_pathwaysIt's been AGES since I've written any fanfic, but here's one I put together for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
eleventy_kink:
Title: More Than a Kissogram (Parts 1 & 2)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Explicit sex; infidelity(ish). (Amy doesn't consider it infidelity, and neither do I, but...well, most people will.)
Characters/Pairings: Amy, Rory, Eleven, Original Female Character, Original Male Character; Amy/Rory, Amy/OFC, Amy/OMC
Part 1 ("The Confession") summary: There's something Amy never told Rory about her job: that if the price was right, she was more than just a Kissogram. After they marry, there comes a time when she has to confess.
Part 2 ("The Resolution") summary: "For as long as you want me, I am yours, but you have to remember: I am mine, too."
Story based on this prompt: There was something Amy never told Rory about her time as a Kissagram. She never told him the if the price was right she was more then willing to perform certain other 'services' for her customers, men and woman alike.
(If you prefer, this story can also be read at AO3.)
"The Confession"
The money was good. It was more than good: it was incredible. She could earn more in one night than she had in a week of bagging groceries at her previous job.
That was a problem: explaining where the money came from. Telling her aunt that the new outfits were only borrowed from a friend. Telling her friends that her brand new cell phone was a gift from Rory. Telling Rory that the stack of crisp £20 notes she pulled out to treat him on their dates was birthday money sent to her from a previously unmentioned aunt.
When keeping track of the lies she told to explain away the money became too stressful, she started simply saving it. Bold, impetuous Amy had never been much of a saver, but what could she do?
No one would ever believe she’d earned that money just from kisses.
x.x.x
The agency made it clear up front: if she was willing to kiss other women, she’d make a bit extra on those jobs, because not all of the girls would do it, and the agency had a small but steady demand.
Amy agreed without hesitation.
The agency also made it clear that kissing was all she was being paid for. Flirt a bit, have a cider: by all means, enjoy the party. But the kiss is what they pay for, and all you’re contractually obligated to.
‘Anything you do after that,’ her boss stated meaningfully, ‘the agency is not responsible for.’
Amy nodded, eyes wide, and then she signed, just a bit shakily.
x.x.x
Rory hated her job, naturally, but it didn’t take him long to get on with the business of accepting it. He’d only been her maybe, sort-of boyfriend for a couple months at that point, but he’d been her best friend for most of her life: he knew her better than anyone. So he knew that controlling Amy was like trying to control the tides: it couldn’t be done, and any attempt at it was sure to be met with disastrous consequences.
He asked her to be safe, and she promised she would. He told her to spare him the details, but she shared them anyway, just a little at a time: not about the 20-something banker with soap star looks, or the drunk scouser who tried to squeeze her bum--but about the shy university student who was so nervous he dropped his pint on his own foot, and the pretty barmaid who giggled when she kissed her and then demanded to know where she’d bought her shoes.
Amy always could tell a story, and in time, she’d convinced him that was all her job was: a story to tell and one more adventure to be had. He began to relax, and “besides, I trust you,” he told her when he kissed her goodbye for the night, careful not to smudge her carefully-applied lippy.
In the beginning, it always made her feel good to hear that.
x.x.x
The house that she walked up to was a lot nicer than most of the places that hired her; a lot of nice cars in the yard, too. Of course, the client was a bit older than her usual.
‘Her 40th birthday,’ the girl who booked the jobs told her. ‘Is that all right?’ she asked when Amy didn’t respond right away.
In the end, it was more than all right: she’d make a double fee because it was a woman, and they’d requested she arrive in one of her favorite costumes: the French maid.
She experienced only a brief moment of self-doubt stood teetering outside on the cobblestones in her stiletto heels before marching straight in and starting her routine.
“May I ask,” she purred, “for ze mistress of ze house? I was sent as a birthday gift, and I beg to ask how I may be of service.”
A group of well-dressed business professionals beamed back at her and tittered at her hilariously bad French accent. The crowd parted slightly, and a tall, slender woman in a black wrap dress with touches of silver in her long blond hair stepped forward.
“I’m the mistress of the house.” She smiled at Amy seductively. “I can think of very many ways you could be of service.” Some customers were rendered speechless by the mere sight of Amy, but this woman stepped into her part readily.
Her friends whooped and laughed appreciatively.
Amy stepped forward, drawn in by the pull of the older woman’s kind, sapphire eyes. Finally, she remembered the part she was playing, and cast her gaze downward, shyly. She curtsied. “Madame...”
When their eyes met again, the woman’s smile was warmer, kinder; and in a voice that was more her own, she said: “Oh my, you are so very pretty...”
There was nothing to do then but kiss her.
Her friends cheered and applauded, and the party moved on. They offered Amy a glass of champagne. She circulated through the guests, tickling them with her feather duster, and bending over to pick things up off the floor, giving the room a generous glimpse of her just-barely-long-enough petticoats.
She stayed much longer than she normally would.
At one point, the woman (Susan, she was called) pulled Amy aside and asked her if she’d ever thought about making a little extra money.
‘What do you mean?’ Amy asked, her third glass of champagne making her head feel fuzzy.
‘Would you like to spend the night?’
For a time, she just stared; then she started to consider. ‘I...I don’t know...’
‘Don’t decide tonight,’ Susan insisted. ‘I’ll call to book you again, and if you fancy it...just say yes.’
The woman left her side then to say goodbye to some guests who were leaving. A ride home was arranged for Amy, with a couple who lived in the town just past Leadworth.
Two weeks later, the agency told her she’d had a request from a repeat customer, and would she like to take the job?
Amy said yes.
The fee she reported to the agency was just her standard fare. The envelope of cash she took home with her the next morning was a much more generous sum.
x.x.x
After that, her name seemed to be on some sort of list. She’d certainly been propositioned by clients before: crudely, jokingly, drunkenly. Now she was being offered an entirely different sort of proposition: straightforward, business-like; and with cash on the table.
More often than not, she found herself saying yes.
Amy had always enjoyed sex, and she’d never seen a reason to deny herself the pleasure just because she couldn’t find a bloke worth exchanging “I love yous” with. Dating too many of the boys in Leadworth was an easy way to find herself even more ostracised than she already was, so she quickly learned to look elsewhere: theater troupes, art clubs--even volunteer youth groups were a plentiful source of boys (and a few girls) to have fun with.
She was already used to the idea of leading a secret life. Her experience with the Doctor taught her there were some things other people just wouldn’t understand, and when it came to those things, it was best to keep them to yourself. (Lest you get shipped off to a psychiatrist.)
‘Slut’ was a label every girl feared, but not Amy: her business was her own, and she didn’t bother to worry about what others would think if she did bother to let them in on her secrets.
Besides: sluts were girls who gave it away for free.
x.x.x
For a very long time, she left Rory in the role of “sort-of” boyfriend: as long as he was only sort-of her boyfriend, then she was definitely not cheating on him.
In the middle of the night, when they lay pressed together in his creaky single bed at nursing school, while he stroked her hair and listened to all the little details of her day, she wanted very badly to admit that she’d finally found a bloke worth exchanging ‘I love yous’ with. But ‘I love you’ came with a price, and that price was honesty. Amy was a firm believer that her life was her own to do with as she pleased, and what Rory didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Nevertheless, the knowledge that the truth, if it did become known, would most definitely hurt him, didn’t sit easy on her conscience.
She couldn’t deny either that her job excited her. She liked it: she was good at it. She loved the thrill of a new body, and the naughtiness of the games she played.
(One night, it was strip Twister with a restaurant manager and his girlfriend. Another, she sat spread-legged on the plush seat of an empty cinema while Susan crouched between her legs and licked her to orgasm. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, but when the film skipped and it took longer than usual to get the reel sorted out, Amy figured the projectionist knew exactly what was going on.)
If ‘I love you’ meant giving it all up, it was a price she just wasn’t willing to pay. Not yet.
Meanwhile, the money she couldn’t afford to spend was piling up in her bank account.
x.x.x
It was the Doctor who changed things.
It wasn’t fair that he should come back and restore her faith, just to rip it all away and leave her again.
When she stopped drifting in the wake of his absence, Rory was there, as he always had been. One night, when he whispered ‘I love you’ into the hollow of her neck, she surprised them both by answering, ‘I love you, too’. For the first time, she could feel how being able to say those words, that loving and being loved in return, might be worth giving up her adventures. She saw the end of her loneliness standing only as far away as her arms’ length.
That weekend, one of her regulars called to book a special date, and she turned them down.
When Rory asked her to marry him, she said yes. She was not without reservations, but the secret life she’d given up the night she said ‘I love you, too’ was only one of them.
x.x.x
Honesty was just as difficult as she’d imagined it would be. From that first night, she’d kept no secrets, and from her own reasoning, that should have been enough. What did the past matter?
She was starting to expect that honesty meant more than not telling lies, but there was never a good time to tell him.
Then the Doctor came back, and she had all of time and space. She remembered the thrill of excitement, and the ecstasy of adventure. (And she always had tomorrow morning, an infinity away.)
Rory joined them, and for the first time, she had him and she had adventure, too.
She lost him. The world ended. But somehow, she got everything back.
In the face of the universe, her secrets meant nothing.
x.x.x
The Doctor dropped them off in Leadworth after their honeymoon to get settled in.
It became clear rather quickly that Rory’s one bedroom flat, with its solitary wardrobe and devastating lack of bathroom counter space, was not going to be adequate for the two of them.
“We could buy a house,” Rory reasoned, “but it would be smarter to wait a year and save up a bigger down payment. I hope you don’t mind renting for a while longer...we could store some of your things at your parent’s house, for now.”
Amy thought about it for awhile before answering. “Well, wait: I have some money, too. Maybe together we have enough to put down on a house.”
Rory glanced at her, then back down at the figures in front of him. He took just a bit too long to respond. “Oh. Ok... Well, how much do you have, then?”
His hesitation made it clear how little he expected her to contribute. Her indignance was the push she needed to come out with the figure.
“I’ll have you know, I have nearly 10,000 pounds in the bank!”
For a beat, Rory just stared at her. Finally, he decided she must be serious. “Amy - where did you get 10,000 pounds?”
She could lie to him: half a dozen plausible lies flew to the tip of her tongue. She had to bite them back, swallowing each one down with a gulp.
She’d promised to be honest, and even using her imperfect definition, that meant not telling lies.
He was too, too quiet as she fumbled and danced around her explanation, “I don’t understand” the only words that left his mouth.
She made it clear for him; there was no backing out now.
He said he had to leave, had to go for a walk. He didn’t want to say anything he’d regret.
He was gone for half the night.
"The Resolution"
The night was dark, almost moonless, and the air was cold. He forgot to grab a jacket when he left their flat; misty condensation from the damp night air is collecting on his shirt. His breath is steaming in front of his face. His hands have gone numb.
He doesn’t notice any of it; he doesn’t even know where he’s going. When he trips over an exposed tree root in front of a neighbor’s house, the fall onto his hands and knees is a sharp slap back into reality. Now he can feel the wetness of the mud seeping into his trousers, and the tingling numbness in his hands when he pushes himself up off the ground.
He’s walked quite a ways from their tiny flat, down the deserted lanes of the surrounding rural village.
Up ahead is the house he grew up in. Just beyond that: Amy’s childhood home.
He stands there for a long time, just staring at the bend in the road that marks that familiar path. He’s walked it so many times, he could close his eyes and find his way there now just by counting his steps.
A thought comes to him: you can never go back. He turns around and starts walking.
*****
It takes him more than an hour to get back to the tiny flat he shares with Amy. He expects to find the place a mess, his things tossed out and scattered ‘round the garden. Instead, the place is eerily quiet, still and deserted, and that state unnerves him even more.
He finds her in their bed. She’s lying on his side of it, facing the wall. It’s hard to tell if she’s asleep or not: she’s fully clothed, and he can’t hear her breathing over the noise of the radiator.
“Amy…” He whispers her name and switches on a lamp. She doesn’t move.
When he peers into her face, kneeling down by the bed, her eyes are open, but she doesn’t look at him; the only movement is a big, heavy teardrop that forms in the corner of her eye and slides slowly down to the tip of her nose.
She flinches when he reaches out to brush it away. He sighs.
“Amy, why didn’t you tell me?”
He’s sure she isn’t going to answer. He’s just about to stand up, to leave their room and make a bed for himself on the sofa, when finally her voice creaks out: “Why do you think?”
“I suppose that’s fair enough.” His knees are aching from his crouching position. Reaching out behind him, he braces himself and sits against the bedroom wall.
When he does, some small, almost infinitesimal degree of tension evaporates from Amy’s face; her shoulders relax just a fraction of a degree. She reaches up a hand to quickly swipe at her dripping nose.
To her, it’s a signal: he’s not leaving; at least, not for now. He’s going to stay.
Rory draws up his knees, resting his elbows and cradling his head in his hands. When he speaks, his voice is careful, quiet. “Amy, I know why you were afraid to tell me, but you also know that you should have told me anyway.”
She doesn’t answer, and so he looks up at her until she meets his eyes. Slowly, she nods.
“I mean, were you...safe?” There are a million questions he wants to ask. This one sounds like a reasonable start.
“Of course I was!” Once again, her indignation has broken through her reluctance to speak. “You know you can trust me to take care of myself…”
He laughs without mirth. “Can I?”
She meets his eyes, and now it’s her turn to concede the point.
“Amy, I want to know…I mean, you kept yourself safe, obviously, but were you…happy?”
She hasn’t expected this question. Still lying on her side on the bed, she stares back at him. He fidgets nervously, poking at a hole in the knee of his jeans.
“What I mean is: did you enjoy it?” He has to look away for this part, staring at his hands and the carpet and anywhere but Amy’s face.
She pushes herself up onto one elbow and waits until he looks at her. “Yes,” she whispers.
There is a spark inside his gut that flares to life when she answers; he can feel it heating the blood in his veins, warming his face, his chest—and his groin.
“Did you enjoy them, those people—was it better than with me?” He doesn’t look away this time, but locks his gaze onto hers. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed now, feet dangling just inches from his knees.
Amy considers before answering. “Not better—it was just…different.”
When he tries to swallow, his mouth is dry. “Exciting?”
Again, she whispers, “Yes.”
With shaking hands, he pushes himself onto his feet so he can sit next to her on their bed. The duvet beneath him is still warm from her body.
She’s waiting for him to touch her, but he doesn’t; not yet. There's a question written on his face, but she isn't sure she knows how to answer.
Still, she has to try.
“Rory, I love you. That’s why I never told you, and it’s also why I stopped. I didn’t want to keep anything from you. I gave it all up for you.”
She won’t be the one to reach for him first. Silent tears start sliding down her cheeks. “Rory, please…”
When he leans in to kiss her, it’s a relief for both of them. Her mouth is trembling; her tears wet his cheeks.
Inside him, the flame still burns.
He lowers the hand that was cupping her cheek and rests it on her shoulder. “Amy..." His voice is a whisper, thick and hoarse. "I want you to tell me about them."
Her brow furrows. “What?”
Rory licks his lips and nervously twists his wedding ring 'round his finger. He darts a furtive glance at her face before trying again. “I want to know about your clients, what you did with them.”
She shakes her head. “Why do you want to torture yourself?”
“I want to hear…”
“Why on earth would you?”
“Amy!” He squeezes her hand to stop her speaking.
Something in the tone of his voice gives her pause. She looks into his face, and she’s shocked at what she sees: his cheeks are flushed, his pupils are dilated…
“Amy,” he tries again, and this time he kisses her, tender but passionate. “Amy, please.”
She reaches out her fingers to touch his lips, and his breath feels heavy against her skin.
He kisses the palm of her hand.
“Where should I start?” Her voice comes out as barely a whisper.
He smiles at her, shyly. “Start at the beginning.”
She starts to tell him about Susan, and the night of her 40th birthday party. She tells him how she felt standing outside the woman’s home, half-naked and exposed, and how nervous she was. He stops her to ask what costume she was wearing, and she tells him about her French maid outfit. Of course he’s seen it before: like her, it had been one of his favorites. She describes it for him anyway: the short frilly skirt, the low-cut top, the tiny little apron, and the red garter belt that held up her black fishnet stockings.
As she speaks, Rory starts kissing her neck: slowly, languorously. He runs his tongue over her collarbone, and sucks gently at the pulse at the base of her neck. Amy closes her eyes and pictures that night: Susan’s long blonde hair with the streaks of silver-gray, and the soft curve of her breasts beneath the black silk of her dress.
Rory takes every word that leaves her lips and marks it onto her body. He can picture her, his Amy, and how she would have looked that night with her cheeks flushed from the champagne. He can picture what the other woman’s hand would have looked like when it reached up to stroke across Amy’s soft, pink lips, and Amy’s gasp of surprise when she did. Each image stokes the flame, and he spreads that heat in a line down Amy’s neck to her breasts, and starts to unbutton her shirt.
Amy reaches the end of that first night. He grabs her waist and half-lifts, half-drags her up the bed so she’s resting against the pillows. He uses his knee to urge her legs apart, and settles into the space between them. His pelvis pressed against hers, she can feel how hard he is already. This is a reaction she never considered, every time she thought about telling him her secrets.
“What next?” he whispers against her ear. His breath is hot against her skin, still wet from his mouth, and she shivers.
“She called to book me again a couple weeks later, and I went to her house. She made dinner – oysters, I think – then we drank champagne and kissed on the sofa.”
Rory has pushed up her bra, and he’s teasing her nipples with his tongue while one hand softly strokes her inner thigh. He looks up at her with eyes dark from lust: “What was her kiss like?”
Amy is lost in the feel of his hands on her body; he pinches her nipple, gently, to get her attention.
“Ah!” she hisses. “What was her kiss like? Well, it was soft, which was nice at first. I thought…well, I thought because she’d been the one to pursue me, that she’d take the lead, but she was shy.”
“And you encouraged her?” Rory prompts.
She smiles, then moans when Rory slips one finger under the waistband of her knickers. “Yes. I…pushed her back against the sofa, and snogged her senseless. When she was panting and breathless, I reached my hand up under her skirt, just like you’re doing now…”
Rory groans as he pictures it, rubbing himself up against Amy's side. He'd had fantasies before, of Amy with other men, other women--but that was all they'd been, just stories in his head. He never thought they could be real; more than that, he never knew he wanted them to be.
Amy felt the hot, hard length of his erection poking her in the side as he lay close, burying his face in the curve of her neck. Her old life, her secrets: they excited him. When he'd walked out the door earlier that evening, she was so sure she'd lost him. She had hoped for forgiveness: this was so much more. She could hardly believe it was real; it might be a dream, if not for the painful, aching throb of arousal between her legs. She reaches for Rory, and realizes that he's wearing far too much clothing.
"When we went back into her bedroom," she continues, "I made a show of stripping off all her clothes, piece by piece." As she speaks, she unzips the hoodie he still wears and slips a hand inside, smoothing over the front of his t-shirt. He's so warm; heat radiates from his body like a furnace. She pulls off the rest of his clothes just as she had Susan's, piece by piece, desperate to feel his skin against her own.
Rory helps her off with his clothing, and the rest of her own. When his erection springs free from his boxers, Amy takes hold of it, possessively, using the grip to draw him close for another kiss.
She pulls back to look at him: his face still holds that strange animal intensity, like a hunger. When he speaks, his voice is raw.
"Tell me about the men. Who was the first?" He kisses his way down her stomach and to the apex of her legs.
Amy closes her eyes, remembering. "David. He was the first."
"What did you do with him?"
"We went out to dinner, and to a jazz club..." She has to stop to catch her breath; Rory has worked his way down her thighs to the hot, slick folds of her labia. He tongues them apart, lapping at her core, and while he workes nudges his nose against the hard, swollen nub of her clit.
She closes her eyes and moans, long and loud.
Rory stops only long enough to urge her on. "What then, Amy?"
"We...at the club, he put his hand on my knee. Just his hand, moving slowly up skirt, stopping on my thigh...oh..." It's hard to concentrate when Rory is bringing her so close. Each word, every detail seems to spur him on, and he works between her legs with a feverish intensity. Every time she stops, he stops, until the words are pouring out of her in a babbling rush of feeling, description--anything to keep him moving his tongue and his fingers against her, inside her.
"I closed my eyes...the music was so loud. I could feel the pulse of the bass between my legs... We kissed in the alley behind the club. He pushed me up against the brick wall...ah! He knelt, pushed up my skirt...I lost my knickers..."
Once again, she loses herself in the feeling, loses her train of thought...
Rory urges her on. "Did he make you come?"
Amy takes a deep breath. "Yes..."
He works one finger and then another inside of her; his thumb presses against her clit each time he moves his fingers in and out. "Did you cry out?"
She can feel the scream building inside her throat as he moves. "Yes!" She's so very close to the edge now...
He pulls his fingers out of her dripping cunt and wipes his hand on her thigh.
Amy moans in frustration, and looks down to see what made her husband stop. His eyes are still dark and shining; his face, wet with her juices, is still flushed.
"Rory?" she asks.
Slowly, he crawls up her body until they are face-to-face. He takes his hard cock and rubs it along her slit, so swollen from the nearness of her orgasm.
"Ohhh, yes..." her groan is just as much pain as it is pleasure.
He nudges her chin with his nose, and when she looks up to meet his gaze, his face is intense, but also a little shy.
"Did you..." He starts, but his mouth is dry. He swallows, breathes deeply, and tries again. "Did you ever think about me when you were with them?"
"Yes..." she answers without hesitation.
Her answer floods him with relief. They both moan appreciatively when he slips inside her.
He thrusts into her slowly, placing soft kisses on her neck, reaching up to stroke her face gently.
She pulls his face down to her for a kiss. "Ohh, Rory...as long as you want me, I'm yours, but you have to remember: I am mine, too."
The flame is still burning inside him, flickering like a candle. Rocking slowly against her, he nods, his face buried in her neck. "I know..."
Amy's heartbeat pulses in time to her husband's thrusts, moving faster now. It's an effort to speak. "I enjoyed what I took from them, what they paid me for--that's what it was, a transaction. But you...ohhh, Rory!" She can feel her climax building like a storm. "Rory, I love you, you love me--that will always make us so much more..."
Steadily, he's moving faster; Amy has never been one for romantic speeches, and this moment feels more intimate, more real than even their wedding vows. He pictures all those hands that have touched her, that have pleased her; he thinks of how beautiful she always looked, as a nurse, as a policewoman, as a French maid...he thinks of all the eyes that have looked on her and wanted; all the mouths that have tasted the saltiness of her skin. The flickering candle inside him bursts into a brilliant flame.
Dimly, he's aware of Amy crying out as he thrusts into once, twice more; he shouts out her name as he spills himself into her.
The sound of their breathing is loud in the hot stillness of their bedroom.
He pulls out of her, but he doesn't move aside. Her chest is heaving against his.
"I love you," he whispers. "I love all of you."
Amy smiles and places a gentle kiss on his mouth. "That's why you're the one I chose."
eleventy_kink:Title: More Than a Kissogram (Parts 1 & 2)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Explicit sex; infidelity(ish). (Amy doesn't consider it infidelity, and neither do I, but...well, most people will.)
Characters/Pairings: Amy, Rory, Eleven, Original Female Character, Original Male Character; Amy/Rory, Amy/OFC, Amy/OMC
Part 1 ("The Confession") summary: There's something Amy never told Rory about her job: that if the price was right, she was more than just a Kissogram. After they marry, there comes a time when she has to confess.
Part 2 ("The Resolution") summary: "For as long as you want me, I am yours, but you have to remember: I am mine, too."
Story based on this prompt: There was something Amy never told Rory about her time as a Kissagram. She never told him the if the price was right she was more then willing to perform certain other 'services' for her customers, men and woman alike.
(If you prefer, this story can also be read at AO3.)
"The Confession"
The money was good. It was more than good: it was incredible. She could earn more in one night than she had in a week of bagging groceries at her previous job.
That was a problem: explaining where the money came from. Telling her aunt that the new outfits were only borrowed from a friend. Telling her friends that her brand new cell phone was a gift from Rory. Telling Rory that the stack of crisp £20 notes she pulled out to treat him on their dates was birthday money sent to her from a previously unmentioned aunt.
When keeping track of the lies she told to explain away the money became too stressful, she started simply saving it. Bold, impetuous Amy had never been much of a saver, but what could she do?
No one would ever believe she’d earned that money just from kisses.
x.x.x
The agency made it clear up front: if she was willing to kiss other women, she’d make a bit extra on those jobs, because not all of the girls would do it, and the agency had a small but steady demand.
Amy agreed without hesitation.
The agency also made it clear that kissing was all she was being paid for. Flirt a bit, have a cider: by all means, enjoy the party. But the kiss is what they pay for, and all you’re contractually obligated to.
‘Anything you do after that,’ her boss stated meaningfully, ‘the agency is not responsible for.’
Amy nodded, eyes wide, and then she signed, just a bit shakily.
x.x.x
Rory hated her job, naturally, but it didn’t take him long to get on with the business of accepting it. He’d only been her maybe, sort-of boyfriend for a couple months at that point, but he’d been her best friend for most of her life: he knew her better than anyone. So he knew that controlling Amy was like trying to control the tides: it couldn’t be done, and any attempt at it was sure to be met with disastrous consequences.
He asked her to be safe, and she promised she would. He told her to spare him the details, but she shared them anyway, just a little at a time: not about the 20-something banker with soap star looks, or the drunk scouser who tried to squeeze her bum--but about the shy university student who was so nervous he dropped his pint on his own foot, and the pretty barmaid who giggled when she kissed her and then demanded to know where she’d bought her shoes.
Amy always could tell a story, and in time, she’d convinced him that was all her job was: a story to tell and one more adventure to be had. He began to relax, and “besides, I trust you,” he told her when he kissed her goodbye for the night, careful not to smudge her carefully-applied lippy.
In the beginning, it always made her feel good to hear that.
x.x.x
The house that she walked up to was a lot nicer than most of the places that hired her; a lot of nice cars in the yard, too. Of course, the client was a bit older than her usual.
‘Her 40th birthday,’ the girl who booked the jobs told her. ‘Is that all right?’ she asked when Amy didn’t respond right away.
In the end, it was more than all right: she’d make a double fee because it was a woman, and they’d requested she arrive in one of her favorite costumes: the French maid.
She experienced only a brief moment of self-doubt stood teetering outside on the cobblestones in her stiletto heels before marching straight in and starting her routine.
“May I ask,” she purred, “for ze mistress of ze house? I was sent as a birthday gift, and I beg to ask how I may be of service.”
A group of well-dressed business professionals beamed back at her and tittered at her hilariously bad French accent. The crowd parted slightly, and a tall, slender woman in a black wrap dress with touches of silver in her long blond hair stepped forward.
“I’m the mistress of the house.” She smiled at Amy seductively. “I can think of very many ways you could be of service.” Some customers were rendered speechless by the mere sight of Amy, but this woman stepped into her part readily.
Her friends whooped and laughed appreciatively.
Amy stepped forward, drawn in by the pull of the older woman’s kind, sapphire eyes. Finally, she remembered the part she was playing, and cast her gaze downward, shyly. She curtsied. “Madame...”
When their eyes met again, the woman’s smile was warmer, kinder; and in a voice that was more her own, she said: “Oh my, you are so very pretty...”
There was nothing to do then but kiss her.
Her friends cheered and applauded, and the party moved on. They offered Amy a glass of champagne. She circulated through the guests, tickling them with her feather duster, and bending over to pick things up off the floor, giving the room a generous glimpse of her just-barely-long-enough petticoats.
She stayed much longer than she normally would.
At one point, the woman (Susan, she was called) pulled Amy aside and asked her if she’d ever thought about making a little extra money.
‘What do you mean?’ Amy asked, her third glass of champagne making her head feel fuzzy.
‘Would you like to spend the night?’
For a time, she just stared; then she started to consider. ‘I...I don’t know...’
‘Don’t decide tonight,’ Susan insisted. ‘I’ll call to book you again, and if you fancy it...just say yes.’
The woman left her side then to say goodbye to some guests who were leaving. A ride home was arranged for Amy, with a couple who lived in the town just past Leadworth.
Two weeks later, the agency told her she’d had a request from a repeat customer, and would she like to take the job?
Amy said yes.
The fee she reported to the agency was just her standard fare. The envelope of cash she took home with her the next morning was a much more generous sum.
x.x.x
After that, her name seemed to be on some sort of list. She’d certainly been propositioned by clients before: crudely, jokingly, drunkenly. Now she was being offered an entirely different sort of proposition: straightforward, business-like; and with cash on the table.
More often than not, she found herself saying yes.
Amy had always enjoyed sex, and she’d never seen a reason to deny herself the pleasure just because she couldn’t find a bloke worth exchanging “I love yous” with. Dating too many of the boys in Leadworth was an easy way to find herself even more ostracised than she already was, so she quickly learned to look elsewhere: theater troupes, art clubs--even volunteer youth groups were a plentiful source of boys (and a few girls) to have fun with.
She was already used to the idea of leading a secret life. Her experience with the Doctor taught her there were some things other people just wouldn’t understand, and when it came to those things, it was best to keep them to yourself. (Lest you get shipped off to a psychiatrist.)
‘Slut’ was a label every girl feared, but not Amy: her business was her own, and she didn’t bother to worry about what others would think if she did bother to let them in on her secrets.
Besides: sluts were girls who gave it away for free.
x.x.x
For a very long time, she left Rory in the role of “sort-of” boyfriend: as long as he was only sort-of her boyfriend, then she was definitely not cheating on him.
In the middle of the night, when they lay pressed together in his creaky single bed at nursing school, while he stroked her hair and listened to all the little details of her day, she wanted very badly to admit that she’d finally found a bloke worth exchanging ‘I love yous’ with. But ‘I love you’ came with a price, and that price was honesty. Amy was a firm believer that her life was her own to do with as she pleased, and what Rory didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Nevertheless, the knowledge that the truth, if it did become known, would most definitely hurt him, didn’t sit easy on her conscience.
She couldn’t deny either that her job excited her. She liked it: she was good at it. She loved the thrill of a new body, and the naughtiness of the games she played.
(One night, it was strip Twister with a restaurant manager and his girlfriend. Another, she sat spread-legged on the plush seat of an empty cinema while Susan crouched between her legs and licked her to orgasm. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, but when the film skipped and it took longer than usual to get the reel sorted out, Amy figured the projectionist knew exactly what was going on.)
If ‘I love you’ meant giving it all up, it was a price she just wasn’t willing to pay. Not yet.
Meanwhile, the money she couldn’t afford to spend was piling up in her bank account.
x.x.x
It was the Doctor who changed things.
It wasn’t fair that he should come back and restore her faith, just to rip it all away and leave her again.
When she stopped drifting in the wake of his absence, Rory was there, as he always had been. One night, when he whispered ‘I love you’ into the hollow of her neck, she surprised them both by answering, ‘I love you, too’. For the first time, she could feel how being able to say those words, that loving and being loved in return, might be worth giving up her adventures. She saw the end of her loneliness standing only as far away as her arms’ length.
That weekend, one of her regulars called to book a special date, and she turned them down.
When Rory asked her to marry him, she said yes. She was not without reservations, but the secret life she’d given up the night she said ‘I love you, too’ was only one of them.
x.x.x
Honesty was just as difficult as she’d imagined it would be. From that first night, she’d kept no secrets, and from her own reasoning, that should have been enough. What did the past matter?
She was starting to expect that honesty meant more than not telling lies, but there was never a good time to tell him.
Then the Doctor came back, and she had all of time and space. She remembered the thrill of excitement, and the ecstasy of adventure. (And she always had tomorrow morning, an infinity away.)
Rory joined them, and for the first time, she had him and she had adventure, too.
She lost him. The world ended. But somehow, she got everything back.
In the face of the universe, her secrets meant nothing.
x.x.x
The Doctor dropped them off in Leadworth after their honeymoon to get settled in.
It became clear rather quickly that Rory’s one bedroom flat, with its solitary wardrobe and devastating lack of bathroom counter space, was not going to be adequate for the two of them.
“We could buy a house,” Rory reasoned, “but it would be smarter to wait a year and save up a bigger down payment. I hope you don’t mind renting for a while longer...we could store some of your things at your parent’s house, for now.”
Amy thought about it for awhile before answering. “Well, wait: I have some money, too. Maybe together we have enough to put down on a house.”
Rory glanced at her, then back down at the figures in front of him. He took just a bit too long to respond. “Oh. Ok... Well, how much do you have, then?”
His hesitation made it clear how little he expected her to contribute. Her indignance was the push she needed to come out with the figure.
“I’ll have you know, I have nearly 10,000 pounds in the bank!”
For a beat, Rory just stared at her. Finally, he decided she must be serious. “Amy - where did you get 10,000 pounds?”
She could lie to him: half a dozen plausible lies flew to the tip of her tongue. She had to bite them back, swallowing each one down with a gulp.
She’d promised to be honest, and even using her imperfect definition, that meant not telling lies.
He was too, too quiet as she fumbled and danced around her explanation, “I don’t understand” the only words that left his mouth.
She made it clear for him; there was no backing out now.
He said he had to leave, had to go for a walk. He didn’t want to say anything he’d regret.
He was gone for half the night.
"The Resolution"
The night was dark, almost moonless, and the air was cold. He forgot to grab a jacket when he left their flat; misty condensation from the damp night air is collecting on his shirt. His breath is steaming in front of his face. His hands have gone numb.
He doesn’t notice any of it; he doesn’t even know where he’s going. When he trips over an exposed tree root in front of a neighbor’s house, the fall onto his hands and knees is a sharp slap back into reality. Now he can feel the wetness of the mud seeping into his trousers, and the tingling numbness in his hands when he pushes himself up off the ground.
He’s walked quite a ways from their tiny flat, down the deserted lanes of the surrounding rural village.
Up ahead is the house he grew up in. Just beyond that: Amy’s childhood home.
He stands there for a long time, just staring at the bend in the road that marks that familiar path. He’s walked it so many times, he could close his eyes and find his way there now just by counting his steps.
A thought comes to him: you can never go back. He turns around and starts walking.
*****
It takes him more than an hour to get back to the tiny flat he shares with Amy. He expects to find the place a mess, his things tossed out and scattered ‘round the garden. Instead, the place is eerily quiet, still and deserted, and that state unnerves him even more.
He finds her in their bed. She’s lying on his side of it, facing the wall. It’s hard to tell if she’s asleep or not: she’s fully clothed, and he can’t hear her breathing over the noise of the radiator.
“Amy…” He whispers her name and switches on a lamp. She doesn’t move.
When he peers into her face, kneeling down by the bed, her eyes are open, but she doesn’t look at him; the only movement is a big, heavy teardrop that forms in the corner of her eye and slides slowly down to the tip of her nose.
She flinches when he reaches out to brush it away. He sighs.
“Amy, why didn’t you tell me?”
He’s sure she isn’t going to answer. He’s just about to stand up, to leave their room and make a bed for himself on the sofa, when finally her voice creaks out: “Why do you think?”
“I suppose that’s fair enough.” His knees are aching from his crouching position. Reaching out behind him, he braces himself and sits against the bedroom wall.
When he does, some small, almost infinitesimal degree of tension evaporates from Amy’s face; her shoulders relax just a fraction of a degree. She reaches up a hand to quickly swipe at her dripping nose.
To her, it’s a signal: he’s not leaving; at least, not for now. He’s going to stay.
Rory draws up his knees, resting his elbows and cradling his head in his hands. When he speaks, his voice is careful, quiet. “Amy, I know why you were afraid to tell me, but you also know that you should have told me anyway.”
She doesn’t answer, and so he looks up at her until she meets his eyes. Slowly, she nods.
“I mean, were you...safe?” There are a million questions he wants to ask. This one sounds like a reasonable start.
“Of course I was!” Once again, her indignation has broken through her reluctance to speak. “You know you can trust me to take care of myself…”
He laughs without mirth. “Can I?”
She meets his eyes, and now it’s her turn to concede the point.
“Amy, I want to know…I mean, you kept yourself safe, obviously, but were you…happy?”
She hasn’t expected this question. Still lying on her side on the bed, she stares back at him. He fidgets nervously, poking at a hole in the knee of his jeans.
“What I mean is: did you enjoy it?” He has to look away for this part, staring at his hands and the carpet and anywhere but Amy’s face.
She pushes herself up onto one elbow and waits until he looks at her. “Yes,” she whispers.
There is a spark inside his gut that flares to life when she answers; he can feel it heating the blood in his veins, warming his face, his chest—and his groin.
“Did you enjoy them, those people—was it better than with me?” He doesn’t look away this time, but locks his gaze onto hers. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed now, feet dangling just inches from his knees.
Amy considers before answering. “Not better—it was just…different.”
When he tries to swallow, his mouth is dry. “Exciting?”
Again, she whispers, “Yes.”
With shaking hands, he pushes himself onto his feet so he can sit next to her on their bed. The duvet beneath him is still warm from her body.
She’s waiting for him to touch her, but he doesn’t; not yet. There's a question written on his face, but she isn't sure she knows how to answer.
Still, she has to try.
“Rory, I love you. That’s why I never told you, and it’s also why I stopped. I didn’t want to keep anything from you. I gave it all up for you.”
She won’t be the one to reach for him first. Silent tears start sliding down her cheeks. “Rory, please…”
When he leans in to kiss her, it’s a relief for both of them. Her mouth is trembling; her tears wet his cheeks.
Inside him, the flame still burns.
He lowers the hand that was cupping her cheek and rests it on her shoulder. “Amy..." His voice is a whisper, thick and hoarse. "I want you to tell me about them."
Her brow furrows. “What?”
Rory licks his lips and nervously twists his wedding ring 'round his finger. He darts a furtive glance at her face before trying again. “I want to know about your clients, what you did with them.”
She shakes her head. “Why do you want to torture yourself?”
“I want to hear…”
“Why on earth would you?”
“Amy!” He squeezes her hand to stop her speaking.
Something in the tone of his voice gives her pause. She looks into his face, and she’s shocked at what she sees: his cheeks are flushed, his pupils are dilated…
“Amy,” he tries again, and this time he kisses her, tender but passionate. “Amy, please.”
She reaches out her fingers to touch his lips, and his breath feels heavy against her skin.
He kisses the palm of her hand.
“Where should I start?” Her voice comes out as barely a whisper.
He smiles at her, shyly. “Start at the beginning.”
She starts to tell him about Susan, and the night of her 40th birthday party. She tells him how she felt standing outside the woman’s home, half-naked and exposed, and how nervous she was. He stops her to ask what costume she was wearing, and she tells him about her French maid outfit. Of course he’s seen it before: like her, it had been one of his favorites. She describes it for him anyway: the short frilly skirt, the low-cut top, the tiny little apron, and the red garter belt that held up her black fishnet stockings.
As she speaks, Rory starts kissing her neck: slowly, languorously. He runs his tongue over her collarbone, and sucks gently at the pulse at the base of her neck. Amy closes her eyes and pictures that night: Susan’s long blonde hair with the streaks of silver-gray, and the soft curve of her breasts beneath the black silk of her dress.
Rory takes every word that leaves her lips and marks it onto her body. He can picture her, his Amy, and how she would have looked that night with her cheeks flushed from the champagne. He can picture what the other woman’s hand would have looked like when it reached up to stroke across Amy’s soft, pink lips, and Amy’s gasp of surprise when she did. Each image stokes the flame, and he spreads that heat in a line down Amy’s neck to her breasts, and starts to unbutton her shirt.
Amy reaches the end of that first night. He grabs her waist and half-lifts, half-drags her up the bed so she’s resting against the pillows. He uses his knee to urge her legs apart, and settles into the space between them. His pelvis pressed against hers, she can feel how hard he is already. This is a reaction she never considered, every time she thought about telling him her secrets.
“What next?” he whispers against her ear. His breath is hot against her skin, still wet from his mouth, and she shivers.
“She called to book me again a couple weeks later, and I went to her house. She made dinner – oysters, I think – then we drank champagne and kissed on the sofa.”
Rory has pushed up her bra, and he’s teasing her nipples with his tongue while one hand softly strokes her inner thigh. He looks up at her with eyes dark from lust: “What was her kiss like?”
Amy is lost in the feel of his hands on her body; he pinches her nipple, gently, to get her attention.
“Ah!” she hisses. “What was her kiss like? Well, it was soft, which was nice at first. I thought…well, I thought because she’d been the one to pursue me, that she’d take the lead, but she was shy.”
“And you encouraged her?” Rory prompts.
She smiles, then moans when Rory slips one finger under the waistband of her knickers. “Yes. I…pushed her back against the sofa, and snogged her senseless. When she was panting and breathless, I reached my hand up under her skirt, just like you’re doing now…”
Rory groans as he pictures it, rubbing himself up against Amy's side. He'd had fantasies before, of Amy with other men, other women--but that was all they'd been, just stories in his head. He never thought they could be real; more than that, he never knew he wanted them to be.
Amy felt the hot, hard length of his erection poking her in the side as he lay close, burying his face in the curve of her neck. Her old life, her secrets: they excited him. When he'd walked out the door earlier that evening, she was so sure she'd lost him. She had hoped for forgiveness: this was so much more. She could hardly believe it was real; it might be a dream, if not for the painful, aching throb of arousal between her legs. She reaches for Rory, and realizes that he's wearing far too much clothing.
"When we went back into her bedroom," she continues, "I made a show of stripping off all her clothes, piece by piece." As she speaks, she unzips the hoodie he still wears and slips a hand inside, smoothing over the front of his t-shirt. He's so warm; heat radiates from his body like a furnace. She pulls off the rest of his clothes just as she had Susan's, piece by piece, desperate to feel his skin against her own.
Rory helps her off with his clothing, and the rest of her own. When his erection springs free from his boxers, Amy takes hold of it, possessively, using the grip to draw him close for another kiss.
She pulls back to look at him: his face still holds that strange animal intensity, like a hunger. When he speaks, his voice is raw.
"Tell me about the men. Who was the first?" He kisses his way down her stomach and to the apex of her legs.
Amy closes her eyes, remembering. "David. He was the first."
"What did you do with him?"
"We went out to dinner, and to a jazz club..." She has to stop to catch her breath; Rory has worked his way down her thighs to the hot, slick folds of her labia. He tongues them apart, lapping at her core, and while he workes nudges his nose against the hard, swollen nub of her clit.
She closes her eyes and moans, long and loud.
Rory stops only long enough to urge her on. "What then, Amy?"
"We...at the club, he put his hand on my knee. Just his hand, moving slowly up skirt, stopping on my thigh...oh..." It's hard to concentrate when Rory is bringing her so close. Each word, every detail seems to spur him on, and he works between her legs with a feverish intensity. Every time she stops, he stops, until the words are pouring out of her in a babbling rush of feeling, description--anything to keep him moving his tongue and his fingers against her, inside her.
"I closed my eyes...the music was so loud. I could feel the pulse of the bass between my legs... We kissed in the alley behind the club. He pushed me up against the brick wall...ah! He knelt, pushed up my skirt...I lost my knickers..."
Once again, she loses herself in the feeling, loses her train of thought...
Rory urges her on. "Did he make you come?"
Amy takes a deep breath. "Yes..."
He works one finger and then another inside of her; his thumb presses against her clit each time he moves his fingers in and out. "Did you cry out?"
She can feel the scream building inside her throat as he moves. "Yes!" She's so very close to the edge now...
He pulls his fingers out of her dripping cunt and wipes his hand on her thigh.
Amy moans in frustration, and looks down to see what made her husband stop. His eyes are still dark and shining; his face, wet with her juices, is still flushed.
"Rory?" she asks.
Slowly, he crawls up her body until they are face-to-face. He takes his hard cock and rubs it along her slit, so swollen from the nearness of her orgasm.
"Ohhh, yes..." her groan is just as much pain as it is pleasure.
He nudges her chin with his nose, and when she looks up to meet his gaze, his face is intense, but also a little shy.
"Did you..." He starts, but his mouth is dry. He swallows, breathes deeply, and tries again. "Did you ever think about me when you were with them?"
"Yes..." she answers without hesitation.
Her answer floods him with relief. They both moan appreciatively when he slips inside her.
He thrusts into her slowly, placing soft kisses on her neck, reaching up to stroke her face gently.
She pulls his face down to her for a kiss. "Ohh, Rory...as long as you want me, I'm yours, but you have to remember: I am mine, too."
The flame is still burning inside him, flickering like a candle. Rocking slowly against her, he nods, his face buried in her neck. "I know..."
Amy's heartbeat pulses in time to her husband's thrusts, moving faster now. It's an effort to speak. "I enjoyed what I took from them, what they paid me for--that's what it was, a transaction. But you...ohhh, Rory!" She can feel her climax building like a storm. "Rory, I love you, you love me--that will always make us so much more..."
Steadily, he's moving faster; Amy has never been one for romantic speeches, and this moment feels more intimate, more real than even their wedding vows. He pictures all those hands that have touched her, that have pleased her; he thinks of how beautiful she always looked, as a nurse, as a policewoman, as a French maid...he thinks of all the eyes that have looked on her and wanted; all the mouths that have tasted the saltiness of her skin. The flickering candle inside him bursts into a brilliant flame.
Dimly, he's aware of Amy crying out as he thrusts into once, twice more; he shouts out her name as he spills himself into her.
The sound of their breathing is loud in the hot stillness of their bedroom.
He pulls out of her, but he doesn't move aside. Her chest is heaving against his.
"I love you," he whispers. "I love all of you."
Amy smiles and places a gentle kiss on his mouth. "That's why you're the one I chose."