The Doll Who Loved Me
Copyright© 2025 by Gigi Potemkin
Chapter 15
Drama Sex Story: Chapter 15 - The story of a lonely, young man being haunted by his sex doll.
Caution: This Drama Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Romantic Heterosexual Fiction Horror Mystery Dolls FemaleDom Interracial
They were walking somewhere in the city, he didn’t know where. Trees surrounded them, just like they surrounded the concrete everywhere, anywhere, all the time in that golden heart of town. «It’s like a forest.» He thought, only to then realize that «it’s nothing like a forest.» He noted again as the beautiful colors shimmered and swirled around him over the darkness, sparkling lamplights glittering in the black. «A rich forest.» Another part of him, and a rather disingenuous one pondered, looking beyond the trees at wherever he could to see tall buildings, ornate structures, big, dark, and imposing.
Buildings whose stone were like their wood: they had a texture, a tenderness, and a color that could never be replicated in a factory, never mass-produced. «Old buildings. Fancy castles.» He whistled in his mind, getting his eyes lost in the rows of fortresses and mansions that shared that space with all the tall, dark, and threatening trees, all classic and intricately detailed, every wall like a sculpture, every door a holy relic.
“Ever been to der Gollenstadt?”
He looked to his left, seeing his girl still there with him. «This is...?!» Parts of his mind were always close to short-circuiting, but there was a lightness, a calming trait in her touch that always prevented him from ... crumbling apart. «It’s ... like ... as if ... s-she can... » He shivered and mumbled.
“Poor thing.” His woman embraced him a little tighter, a warm and firm hug with one arm around his waist. “Should I get you a proper coat? On top of the suit, I mean?”
He gulped. Her voice was like a lasso gathering the steeds of his thoughts in order. “No. It’s just ... all of this ... is a little too new ... perhaps a little too much for me.”
She chuckled. “Good.” And said not a word more.
Since her command for utmost sincerity, he dared not withhold from her any information, even less so to utter a misleading one. «Meu senhor querido!» He felt crushed, overwhelmed, but all of it was wonder. He may have not spoken as much as he wanted to, for the reins of honesty exerted quite the heavy pull on his heart, but all that he did speak was unconditionally honest, a type of restraint that made his every word worth more than a thousand speeches. Certainly more than all the speeches he’d ever uttered ... back...
Back in his past. Back in his land.
The walked by the lights, and the butterflies in his stomach fluttered among the stars. “Say.” From his side, he heard her voice. “You’re a creative, aren’t you?”
That foxy, clever voice! Every time she spoke to him with that tone, oh, he knew he would have a fun, fun time!
“Hmm?” He looked at her.
“Hmm!” She mocked him. “Don’t you pretend you didn’t understand.” She raised a hand to his face, flicked a finger on his nose. Pinch! “You are an artist, are you not? What you do for a living?”
His feet, stopped. Her feet, still going, but slower, then slower still, then turning around so she could look and giggle at his face. “I got you, didn’t I?” She basked on that flimsy victory while her male hid his face briefly, then walked again with her.
“How...” He gulped. He coughed. He chuckled. “How’d’you know?”
“It became clear to me about an hour ago.” She refreshed his memory with the sunbeams of her beautiful smile. “When you said that people are more complicated than machines. I had my suspicions, my gut feelings, indeed, that you were more of the libertine type, of the creative crafts, but it all only came together very neatly, like a lightbulb lighting up, when you said it: people are more complicated than machines.” She giggled. “This is something only an artist would say.”
He turned to her. “You don’t read minds, do you?”
She stuck out her tongue. “♫ Silly, silly, willy-nilly. ♫ I don’t need to read minds for that. Didn’t I tell you how good I was with people? And machines?”
“Fine.” He grunted. “I’m just ... sort of ... avoiding the topic. Being dramatic, that’s all.”
“Just like all artists do.”
“You’re going to ask me now what I do, uh, creatively, right? How I pay my bills and such?”
Tlac! Tlac! She snapped her fingers like guns in the air. “Correcto, mi roboto! Oh, look at who’s reading whose mind now!”
“Hmm.” He half grumbled, half chuckled, and Johanna...
“So?” She would not allow the silence to go, denying him his hopes of losing her tracks. “What do you do for a living?”
He looked at her. He admired her. Such a strong, terrible aura coming from such a pretty, eternally young face. She was scarier than ... the other one ... in many different, fascinating ways. She didn’t need big muscles or voluptuous curves to crush a lover into submission. «Welp. Or maybe I’m just too small and petty regardless.»
They stopped. Only then, when their steps had ceased, did he snap out of his thoughts and contemplations. “What beautiful things are you thinking about right now?” She addressed him, hands on his elbows, fields of dreams in her pink, blushy cheeks. “You’re admiring me. Getting lost in my beauty, so ... I’m sure they are pleasant, wonderful things, these thoughts you’re having, these things you’re thinking about.”
He gulped. He coughed. He chuckled. And she chuckled with him too. “Fine, uh...” He stepped back. One step. Very short. Just a little one. “Hones-, uh, honesty, eh?” He saw her tilting her head, slightly confused. “We should, uh, be honest ... to each other. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Honest all the time, eh?”
Again, she nodded. “All the time.”
And her smile was worth the world. “Oh, I see. Because...”
The air. The wind.
The leaves on the trees.
Each of them. He could hear them. The air. The wind. The leaves...
“Because ... we’re strong. Aren’t we?”
She stepped forward. One step. Very short. Just a little one. “We are.”
He drew courage from the songs of the leaves, all of which rooted for him. “And if ... if I don’t feel like ... being honest?”
She shrugged. “Then choose silence. Just don’t lie, okay?” She trapped him with her eyes. “Lies are for the cowardly and the meek.”
“Hmm.”
She gave another step forward. Oh! Her lips ... they were touching his nose. “There is only one thing I find truly disgusting in this world, and that is weakness. Meekness.” She touched his hands. They were warm and soft. No longer shivering. “You promise me you will not be weak. Um?”
“I ... I...” His eyes. Lost, lost, lost. “I cannot make such a promise.”
He gulped, and his woman kept looking at him with mysterious eyes. “Promise regardless.”
“Oh.” He looked away. Not too far away. Just a bit. Just for drama, really. “And what if it’s a lie? This promise of mine?”
“It won’t be.”
The whole world felt as sure as the tropical sun rising every day, and he stood strong, tall as the trees and buildings around them, made as sure and straight as those words he heard from her beautiful, beautiful lips.
He pulled back, a clock ticking in his mind, certainty glazing on his face, sem tempo a perder, sem tempo a perder! “Hmm. Very well. I...”
Clock ticking.
Certainty fading.
Clock ... ticking.
Ticking.
“I choose silence.”
She made an expression that was both comic and understanding, and then ... she walked away.
“Hmm...?” He walked after her, both of them strolling side by side, just as they had been for the previous hundreds of hours, and he... “So.” He didn’t know how to react. “That’s it?”
He didn’t know he didn’t have to know how to react.
“Uh-huh.” She nodded, so simply, so completely, and then just ... walked away.
She walked and walked and walked away.
“Oh. Okay.”
Every step brought the couple to a different place, in a different hour, the night growing thin as their silence grew warm and her smiles, captured through his side glances, grew as bright as the moon. Who was stealing from whom? Him, stealing peeps from her through covert eyes? Or her, instilling doubts in him through her more open glances and wily smirks?
“You can say it.”
“Hmm...!”
She chuckled. “You can ask me whatever you want. You need not fear my answers, you know.”
“I don’t?” His tone, stern, doubtful, cunning. Like herself. “I need not fear your answers, really?”
She giggled. “Wolves of a pack. You need not fear me, perrito.”
“Huh.”
“I know, I know.” She turned to him, still walking. “Bleeding heart, isn’t it?”
He avoided her gaze, fought with himself against his better instincts, but... «ai, que merda.» Were those really his better instincts? Or just his worst ones?
“I don’t do much in life.”
“Hmm, hmm.”
Silence. Steps. Breathing, breathing.
“I do ... paintings. Digital paintings. Illustrations. Covers.” He gulped. “For books. Network pages. Magazines. Posters, sometimes.”
“Oh, oh, I see.” She walked. Slower. “You’re an illustrator? A designer, is that it?”
“I don’t have, uh, a technical term for what I do.” He shrugged. “People pay me to ... put images together ... often texts and other ... stuff in it, uh, and I ... I give them the files and...” Shrug. Shrug. Shrugs. “Get my monies.”
“That’s quite impressive.”
He turned to her. “It’s not.”
She stopped. One hand on his shoulder. “I kept this in because I didn’t want to interrupt you, nor take back the reins of the conversation while you were finally opening up. However, as you’re apparently falling back again into your worst habits, let me be very clear and very straight with you just now.” Her hold ... wow! What an incredible grip she had with that hand! “I said this is impressive. I mean it when I say this is impressive. Because this is impressive! It is a lot in life.”
“Oh...”
“Eyes on me, mister.”
He raised them. He stared at her. He died. “Yes ... ma’am.”
She chuckled. “This is a lot. You crossed continents. Landed safely on a safe harbor. Maintained yourself quite well and without a fuss.” One eyebrow, high and higher and even higher still. “I suppose you get paid in hard cash, strong currency, do you not?”
He blushed. “Yes.”
“Oooh.” She let him go. They walked again. “What service do you use?”
Don’t tell her don’t tell her don’t tell her you stupid fucking s-
“Torval for the transfers. Not, uh, money, but, uh, files.”
“I see.”
“Bank ... isn’t here.”
“I supposed none of them are. Pretty impossible to bring cash through usual means.” She peeked at him. “Legal means, that is.”
He blushed. His eyes were everywhere. “Legality is ... often flexible.”
“Indeed.” She laughed, and his heart felt ... happy with that.
“I told you I was a thief.”
“I see, I see. I see you, player.” She winked. “A player and a slayer.” She hid her naughtiest giggles in her breast. “So, how do you deal with money? Where do you hide it, eh?”
He turned to her. “What did you say you work with, again? Nothing to do with, uh, the ... uh, revenues and ... finance departments of, uh, government, right?”
“Just answer it, silly.”
“Fine. Uh...” Eyes ahead. A light path. “Toyoda.”
“Ah, you too?”
“You have an account with them?”
“Surprised? Anyone who wants to hold onto real cash go eastern. Extortionist rates, though.”
“Mmph! You tell me about it.”
“So, let me get this straight: you came all the way here from half-away the world, settled on (what I suppose is) a nice home by the skirts...”
“Wäelfland punt, actually.”
“Wäelfland, oh, yes. This is where Jojo works. Oh, my, then! You’re even better off than I expected.”
“Please, don’t be like this.”
“I will be like this, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.” She laughed, quite the maniacal fiend. “So you have a nice home...”
“A tiny home.”
“ ... in a nice place in the nicest of countries, with a stable link, and all of this with the eye-and-liver fees that Toyoda charges.” She stopped. “Mind if I ask you something?”
“Oh, well, I guess I don’t mind it anymore.”
“Very well. What exactly do you draw? Or illustrate, whatever?” She reverted to walking at a dairy whimsy pace. “This might be just my ignorance speaking, but I never figured artists could afford such a lifestyle.”
“They can’t. Artists don’t get paid. Laborers do.”
“Oh.”
He stopped. She stopped after him. For the very first time, indeed. “Artists do art. I do labor. Different things, you see.”
“I see. So...”
The wind. The leaves. The sea crashing, farther away, all of them whispering, leading doubt astray. “Porn.”
Eyes. His.
Eyes. Hers.
A moment of pause. A smile growing without showing.
“Porn.” Repetition. “I do porn for a living.”
One second of calm. This is all she allowed him before ... the laugh!
“Oh, my ... hah! Hah, hah, hah!” And then a pause. And then again... “HAHAHAHAHA!!” It was over, though. Almost as soon as it’d begun, her laughter rescinded back to giggles back to smiles back to compassionate rubs on his arm. “Look at you!” She boomed. “Really, truly a fiend, aren’t ye?”
He looked right, he looked left, he... “Yeah.” He looked at her, warm smile on his face, the pain and the doubt all but gone, flowers growing in his breast.
«Is this what ... the freedom ... the freedom from lies ... that thing people talk about ... feels like?»
Truth shall set you free.
“May I see it?”
“What?”
“Your porn?”
A crash. A train derailment in his guts.
A couple of coughs. Cough! Cough! “I ... uh ... no.”
“I see.”
“No, I mean ... not ‘no’ in the sense that you can’t, but ... like ... no, you can’t.”
“That doesn’t quite make much sense.”
“I know, I know. Hmm, how do I put it...” He hid his face behind one hand, blushing a bit. “You can look into some of my works, like...”
“Oh, that’s great!”
“Hold on, hold on. I, like ... it’s not like I have them ready or anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t exactly keep any files. Like, old ones, that is. And the ones I keep are, like ... off-limits. And such.”
“Non-disclosure?”
“Hm?”
“You’re legally obliged to never show them to any person? That’s what I meant.”
“Oh, I...” He shrugged, he grimaced, his shoulders formed waves of indecision. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It’s not, like ... everything...” He moved his hands around, hoping that his winding, bouncing gestures would make his words any clearer. “It’s always more like ... in a gray zone, you know.”
“I got it, I got it.” Her smile became bigger at every repetition.
“It’s porn. Like ... not porn porn, but still ... it’s not something, uh, people like leaving trails for. You know?”
“What do you mean, not porn porn?”
“There’s little actual nudity involved. In most cases, that is.”
“Oh, so, more like ... erotic? Suggestive?”
“Yes.” A boulder was lifted off his lungs. “More, uh, more like it, yes.”
“Can I see them, though? You told me that I could see some of them.” She did a little dance, biting her lips, wiggling her eyebrows. “Sort of.”
He gulped gallons of air, the fires in his head burning as if they’d just received hot, fresh batches of coal. “Well, I ... so...”
She laughed. “Take your time!” Then ... she resumed walking with him, the pace carefully chosen to instill calm waters into that stormy mind. “It’s amazing, really. Not just what you do, but the fact that you’re actually telling me all this.” She winked. “Thank you for your trust. It means the universe to me.”
“Oh, come, that’s...” That’s nothing. He thought to say, but gladly chose to stay quiet. “Um, you ... uh...” He smiled. “You’re welcome.”
The trees turned to lights turned to buildings turned to trees again. Every step felt like laying on a divan and taking a nap. «Why am I feeling so calm?» He looked at his palms, seeing them straight and still. «Why am I acting so cool?»
His thoughts, or rather, his actions, unlike the walk, were quick and decisive.
“Have you heard about, uh ... My President Beloved?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a series of books. A ... steamy type of romance they sell there in the northern parts of the Americas. Mississipi, Cali, those sorts of places.”
“Do they still make money out of these things?”
He shrugged. “Apparently they do. Enough to pay me, I mean.”
“Hmm. Hmm.”
“Have you heard of it?”
“I know what you’re talking about, but no, I haven’t heard about this book in particular.” She mused to herself. “My President Beloved. Oh, heh! I can already see the story just by the title.”
“It gets way worse than this, you know.”
“I can imagine.” She acted like she was constantly trying to keep her giggles under control.
“La Reina del Upaxaca. The Thief and the Heart. Ever heard of them?” She shook her head gracefully. “I know The Bandid I Loved.” She bit a lip. “Enjoyed it a lot in uni.”
“That’s before my time. What about...” He strained his memory searching for whatever title he deemed popular enough. “Stained ... uh, Stained Glass Sins?”
“Oh, you worked for this?”
“Yeah.” He blushed. “I made, uh, all the covers. Small pay, but, uh, stable enough. Eight books, eight covers. Enough to buy, uh, nice coffee with it.”
“Odin mai, this is so awesome!”
“You like the series?”
“Never heard of it.”
He stopped. She looked at him with a mischievous smile and shrugged. They both laughed, and so resumed walking again. “So you don’t know any of these, do you?”
“Let’s say that I am in good standing with the love gods. I lack no blessings in this walk of life.”
“Huh. I see.”
Silence. A pause filled with glances and smirks. “Is this about Joshua?” “What? No, no. I ... what, uh, what made you think...?”
“Oh, forget it.” She shook her head, pranced ahead. “Stupid me being all stupid and silly. I thought you were, you know, kind of thinking of him.” Her smirk, oh! It could kill, that grin of hers. “I noticed how you were looking at him back there, when we were all together.”
“I have, uh, no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Good. Better leave it like this.” She pranced back, trotting like a pony. “But, just for your information, there’s nothing going on between him and me, and there hasn’t been for years, nor there will ever be again. In terms of lovers, I would say I am ... quite free at the moment.”
“Oh. Hmm. Not sure what I can do with this information, but...” He moved his fists close to her chest, both thumbs turned up. “Thanks, I guess.” “You’re very welcome. Given your ... line of work, I suppose you will find good use for this information soon. Somehow.”
“I...” He smiled. He didn’t want to have smiled in this specific instance ... but he did. “I will keep this in mind.”
“And in order places too, I hope.”
He looked at her. “Hmm?”
“You will keep this in mind...” She winked. “And in order parts of your body too. Farther south, maybe.”
“Alright, uh...” He walked faster, stepping away from her. “No.”
“Oy, I’m sorry!” She chased after him. “Hey! I’m serious. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Strong people, cough, don’t apologize, uh, remember?”
“Until they do.” She winked. “Remember?”
“You, uh ... err, I...”
“Hey, hey, listen. I’m sorry.” She touched him on his arm, her pace slowing to a crawl. It was a simple touch. Not a pull, nothing aggressive at all, but it was enough to put him to a halt. “I went a little too far, I know.”
“You, you can, y- you can, uh...”
She laughed. “Oh, pobrezito. Desculpame, desculpame, amor.”
“I don’t speak the language.”
“Yeah, I know.” She rubbed her forehead. “Oh, but you can understand this, can’t you?”
Breathe in, breathe out. His heart, oh, his heart... Thu-rum! Thu-rum! Thu-rum! Thu-rum...!
Thu-rum!... Thu-rum!*
...
Thu-rum!
...
...
Thu-rum.
“Feeling better, now?”
“I do.”
He stopped by, here and there, to catch a breath and admire his surroundings. «Wow.» The city was getting more and more beautiful—and more expensive-looking—the longer they walked.
“Uh, sorry. On my part. I kind of, uh ... overreacted a bit.”
“Don’t apologize. Not for this. Not because you’re strong, but also because, in this case, yes, you’re correct for feeling this way.” They exchanged glances. Just as mercilessly sharp as when she was teasing, she was relentlessly charming when she was apologizing. “It was not overreacting, it was ... reacting just right.” She took a tender bow. “Le ofrezco mis desculpas, chiquito.”
“...”
“I offer you my apologies.” She glowed. “Sweetie.”
He raised one arm. She followed the gesture intently, curious to see where he was going with it. “And I ... uh ... I forgive you.” He laid the arm on her shoulder, “knighting” her with his forgiveness. “Just, uh ... just take it a little, uh, easier next time, okay?”
“Okej.”
“You...” Gulp “Intense, are you not? You ... you press a little too hard. Sometimes.”
She hopped around him like a bunny. “I like touching where it hurts.”
“Mm. Don’t touch too much. I bleed easy.”
“I know. In a way, makes it even harder for me to resist.” Very shamelessly, even loudly, she licked her lips—her full, beautiful red lips—in front of him. “You bleed easy. You bleed full. Makes you only more delicious for a predator like me.”
“Hmmm...”
“Uncomfortable?”
After pondering for a while, he felt in the air the breeze of the morning, and then wondered whether they’d actually spent all that time talking to each other. Not that he minded it. Not a bit. “Look, uh ... strong or not...” His shoulders were low, so low. “You should be careful.”
“Of what?”
“This behavior. You know ... you too should be careful with whom you act like this. Many men, uh, might take it the wrong way.” Then ... she was silent. “Hey?”
She smiled. “I was punched once.”
He turned. “You were?”
“Yes. By a guy, in fact.”
“Why?”
“Because of this.” She hopped around. “Because of who I am.”
“Intense?”
“Annoying.” She corrected it. “You can say it, I’ve no problem with it.”
“Uh...”
“Honesty never hurts. Not the people with the right type of skin. Rough skin! It only strengthens them.”
“That’s not it, it’s ... just ... oh, I’m sorry. You aren’t annoying. You’re ... lively. And cute.”
“Oh, aren’t you the gentleman?” She danced for a while, moving ahead of him, and then stopped, contemplative once more. “Of course I am like this to you: lively instead of annoying. You like me.” She tapped a finger on her head, then on his. “Birds of a feather.”
He smiled. “Wolves of a pack.”
Johanna howled. “Awoooo!” Very low and sweet. “For most people, the people who do not like me, I’m just annoying. Weak people can’t take a good joke in high spirits. They can’t stand another person’s happiness, and the stronger this person is, the less they can stand them.”
“I ... I can relate to that.”
“I know you can. You’ve been born amongst the low. You lived with them. Mingled with them. You know their ins and outs, as well as the rottenness of their souls.” She touched his head, and he accepted her touch without a flinch. “It did a number on you, didn’t it?”
He took her hand. She fondled it. “It did.”
He hadn’t many more clever words to utter. The crunch in his heart, like a paw squeezing it tight, tore his expressiveness down to its most basic vernacular.
“It’s no issue.” Johanna stepped in closer.
C ... l ... o ... s ... e ... r...
“It’s going to heal.” She fondled his hand back, their fingers all deeply enamored, hugging and cuddling one another, memorizing every line of each other’s prints. “It’s going to heal like nothing. Quicker than lightning.”
“Hmm.” He grumbled, yet this time... “Are you sure?” And all the more time he spent with her... “Really, I mean?” He felt bolder and stronger to go beyond mere monosyllabic grunts. “You sure of this?”
She nodded. “Hm-mm!” The certainty of a whole universe brimmed in her every nod. “As certain as the rising sun at winter’s end, I know it, and I have no fear to say it: you will be better.”
“Oh.” He smirked. “Rising sun, eh? Coming from this land, this isn’t much of a reassurance.”
She beamed. “It isn’t, is it? Because we do not have a sun?”
“You very rarely do.”
“But we still have it, and it still comes, as it always comes even after the darkest winters, just like it comes more often and stays with us much longer with each passing year.” She winked, and then he heard a bell ring somewhere in the distance. “Remember: even in here, it used to be much colder. We’re living through the warming days, just like you are living through the warming of your heart.”
She placed her hands on his breast. He turned slightly.
They walked again. “Anyway...” He muttered, and then noticed her walking only a little slower, giving him a most precious space. “How did you manage?”
“Manage?”
“To survive.”
“Oh. The dude who punched me?”
“Yeah.”
She slapped her biceps. “I’m strong!”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m not as frail as I look, you know.”
“I didn’t say a thing.”
“But I know what you’re thinking.” She sighed. “I’m not the thickest branch in the forest, not the thorniest flower in the bush. What I am, however, is sturdy. And I know how to forge alliances.”
“Did you get out fine or...?”
“I was protected. I had friends at the moment, and my friends had friends who had friends of their own, and so on and so forth, and they all came to my aid.” Her facial expressions alternated between darkness, haughtiness, and devilish pride. “Remember, darling: few people love me, but the ones who do ... oh. They don’t just simply love me; they worship me!”
“Huh. I see.”
“They adore me more than the people who hate me hate me. You could say I’m a religious figure. Of sorts. A cult leader, if you may.”
“Brimming with such confidence ... welp, I don’t doubt it. You are cut for the job.”
“Indeed I am. Most people, after all, are sheep, and sheep will always follow anything that moves, so long as it moves with conviction, or at least any degree of, uh, noticeable certainty.”
“Oh, wow. Now that you say it like this, I can see why someone would punch you.”
“And I can see you’re not this someone.” She moved in. Got him by his arm. Pulled him closer. “Do you object to me holding you like so?”
Thoughts, thoughts, lightning in a bottle, boom, explosions, death, calamity, boom, boom, blam...!
“No.” He looked at her. “You feel ... good.”
“And you feel comfy.”
She laid her head on his shoulder. He... “Oh.” He felt the impressive warmth and cuddliness of her gentle, soft head on him. In times like those, he wished he didn’t have so many layers of cloth and silk separating him from such ... heavenly texture. «The cold would mean nothing.» He breathed in, breathed out, and clouds of crystalline silver rose and died ahead of his gaze. «Her warmth is all one needs.»
They walked for a couple of miles longer until she warmed him with her voice. “You would feel more comfy if you weren’t so thin, you know.”
He turned to her, a playful smile on his face. “I’m not asking you for, uh ... fitness advice.”
“Ain’t fitness, honey bun. It’s health.”
“Mmph.”
She pinched his sides. “Put on a couple stones of muscle,” she winked, “and we’ll talk.” Bonk! “Ouch, ouch!” She giggled. “You meanie.”
He wondered if he’d butted her head a little too hard with his forehead. “That’s what you get for, uh, unsolicited, uh ... hmm...”
“Advice.”
“Yeah. That. Unsolicited advice.”
“For an artist, you’re awfully awkward with words.”
“I’m a painter. Uh, a designer. I, I ... I design stuff.”
“Well, can you design yourself some more muscles? Or at least a bit of fat? Oh, darling, given your state for now, you can’t afford to be picky. Fat or muscles, whatever makes you grow a little ... thicker will work.”
“Off with the teasing, you.”
“But you’re liking it.” She moved in. So. Much. Closer. “Admit it, muffin.”
“Hmrmm.”
“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”
“Don’t you feel scared? Like ... in a survival kind of sense?”
“No. And it’s not as if I tease one who doesn’t like to be teased. That incident, so long ago, oh ... it was one of the rare moments I couldn’t read a person well. This innocence of mine, which was never too great, is now long gone. Now ... I am perfect.” She shone, wearing the moon like a crown. “With one look, I know a person exactly.”
“Hmm.”
“I know you’re good.” She pulled him tighter, hugged him harder. “And I know you’re good with me too.”