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Velleity
It had been on her mind for a while, even if only peripherally. Grocery runs after work, a cherub strapped to a weary chest and thick cheeks turning up when she smiled from her place in line. Galadriel never wanted a baby until she wanted a baby.
“I’m not following.”
“I said—”
“No, yeah. I got that part. I just,” Halbrand waved the spatula, scowling at the water stains on the ceiling, “I mean – it sounds like you want your boyfriend to fuck a baby into you.”
Galadriel rolled her eyes through the burn of a blush. Their kitchen was humid with curry spice and the fizz of Topo Chico, cracked window a pitiful reprieve from Atlanta in July. (She’d begged Halbrand to buy another box fan, but Galadriel’s stepbrother was clearly practicing his future status as thermostat dad with the way he complained about their electricity bill.)
“Do you have to say it like that?”
“Is there another way to say it?” He cut the burner and pinned her with the full weight of his stare, “What is this really about, Galadriel?”
They’d opened wine. That was the only explanation (explanation? Excuse? Semantics, actually.) The countertop was cold under her bare thighs and yet there was a scratchy heat blooming all over. Galadriel grimaced, legs kicking. The words came out on a restless hiss. “I don’t want to ask Celeborn for a baby.”
“Clearly—”
“No,” she snapped, and his brow curved, “I don’t…I don’t want to ask, Halbrand.”
“I’m not following.”
“You’re seriously gonna – fuck. Okay. Have you ever… like—”
Her hands flailed, fingers flexing as if to grab and tug and twist. It dawned slowly – his eyes on her hands, his frown softening into the gentlest oh. And then Halbrand was looking at Galadriel like he’d never seen her before.
“You want him to make you.”
Shame twisted her belly, a bitter tang familiar as the thrill that shivered down her spine in its wake. Galadriel was contrarian, difficult at times, but always in charge. College graduate, decent job with a small consulting firm; she was organized and efficient and methodical to a fault. And that competence – that chronic capability – was as exhausting as it was addicting. She would never willingly relinquish control, but that didn’t mean she didn’t wonder if maybe…sometimes…
(Celeborn never made demands. Celeborn always asked, and said please.)
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
Like he does. “Like I’m a head case.”
“That’s not how I’m looking at you.”
It wasn’t. In fact, Galadriel had never seen Halbrand wear this expression before. There was caution, and curiosity, and a careful slackness in his stubbled cheeks. But there was also something deepening behind his eyes, and in its growing shadow, a predator was pacing.
“He’s not gonna do that, Gal.”
“I know.”
“I mean – Celeborn will never do that.”
She picked at her cuticle, face tight in an effort not to cry. “I know, Halbrand.”
It sat between them, gnarled and tired. Halbrand didn’t like Celeborn. Celeborn didn’t like Halbrand. Sometimes Galadriel wondered if Celeborn even liked her, and she couldn’t say she liked him all that much anymore, either. They were together because they’d been together. But Galadriel’s boyfriend struggled to simply spank her properly, and now she wanted him to force a baby on her because, because—
This is the biggest choice of my life, and for once I don’t want to be the one to make it.
****
They carried on like it never happened. Tucking into their food and finishing the bottle, they watched Clueless for the billionth time, and when Galadriel fell asleep on the couch Halbrand carried her to bed like he always did.
A week passed. Celeborn left her on read and Galadriel ignored his calls. Her days bled together, thoughts tunneling as autopilot kicked in. The ringing in her ears was low-grade and constant. She clocked in, tended her emails, ate the same Trader Joe’s Caesar salad for lunch at 12:20. Galadriel wondered if monotony would kill her maternal itch the way it had slowly suffocated her passion, but hers was an acute ache – the only spot of fevered feeling in an otherwise tepid life. If Halbrand understood this, he never said. He cooked dinner and smoked weed on the back porch and left morning coffee in the pot like he always did. The dust that clung to his jeans from the construction sites he managed sat on the back of her tongue, taunting. They were good at this – cohabitating in silence, knowing everything about each other and speaking none of it.
***
There was a hand on her throat.
Galadriel stirred, sleep-soft mouth slow to form words. The what puttered to a wheeze when he squeezed tighter.
“No talking.”
Rapid blinking in the dark, but there was only shadow. Galadriel felt more than saw the hard lines of a man looming above her. Her hips trapped between his thighs, knees pinning her ribs until they pinched.
“Halbrand?”
He slapped her. It wasn’t hard, but she choked in shock, a wet sound caught high in her crushed windpipe. Teeth clicked against her jaw, more menacing than a bite.
“I said no. Fucking. Talking.”
Panic bloomed, bright and hot and expanding rapidly. It was reflex to buck beneath him and cry out when he smacked her again. The grip on her neck moved to give her jaw a rough shake, and Galadriel filled her lungs for a scream.
“I will gag you. I swear to God, Gal—”
His hand was massive, closing over mouth and nose and smothering her completely. Galadriel flailed, air stinging as it thinned in her lungs, and Halbrand hissed when she bit down on the meat of his palm. It was enough to throw him off. She rolled, fell, hit the ground with a thud—
He caught her by the nape, by the motherfucking scruff. Galadriel sobbed, falling back into strong arms all too ready to scoop her up and drag her across the room. Her feet tangled, head hitting the wall with a crack as he pinned her on a snarl.
“Enough,” forearm beneath her chin, Halbrand crowded in closer, “You’re done.”
Another shake, so hard it rattled her teeth and wrung her of thick whimpers. “You think I care if you cry? Nah, baby.”
He was moving now, free hand skimming the hem of her sleep shorts. Galadriel shuddered through a wet rush while the tears fell.
“Go ahead and pitch your fit.”
He found her sopping, but he still made it hurt. Two fingers breaching her hard and fast. Two fingers with no warning. Two fingers, and they were Halbrand’s fingers, her stepbrother’s fingers. The boy who’d shared Galadriel’s room when they were ten and eight. The surly teenager who’d driven her to school and taken her to prom when Celeborn got food poisoning and hugged her first at her college graduation, lips to her ear as he whispered how proud he was. Halbrand was all of those things, and he was fucking half his hand inside of her while Galadriel wailed against his collarbone.
“You’re so wet it’s dripping on the floor. He can’t touch you like this. Celeborn is such a nice boy, isn’t he? Hush, don’t pretend. I’m gonna give you what he won’t, and what you’re too chickenshit to ask for.”
Galadriel put up a weak fight as Halbrand pulled her off the wall, but when he shoved her to the floor, she crawled in earnest towards the door. He didn’t let her get far; an indulgent chuckle, a hand grabbing her ankle hard and tugging until she flopped on her belly, chin to wood and tongue pinched between her teeth. The phantom tang of blood rushing to the surface – stymied at the draw – left her lightheaded with euphoria.
“Next time, I want to see you crawl. But not tonight.”
Halbrand’s knee hit the carpet. Galadriel moaned under his restless palms. He made quick work of her shorts, palming her ass before coaxing her hips up (no, not coax – Halbrand was all yank and tilt.) The air was thick with faded perfume and their shared heat. Between the darkness and a film of tears, Galadriel had no hope for sight. It made it scarier – the world was sharp sound and malicious touch. A harsh breath as he bent down and licked a lewd line up the center of her cunt. Another slap, nails denting her skin. She could feel the head of his cock parting swollen folds – he was bare, oh, she wanted to see it—
Halbrand fucked inside in a single thrust. Halbrand filled her to the brim without permission or issue. Halbrand gave her all of it, and Galadriel would never be ready. Not for his size. Not for the pang in her stomach as he bottomed out. Not for the curve of his cock and the hard ridge of the head, a hook fixing into the softest skin at the very heart of her. She would never be ready, and she would never recover, and she would never find the words to say—
“Shh, I know,” he stretched long over her back, nipping at the crook of her neck, “You can thank me with a sonogram.”
Deep strokes turned a stinging burn into warm butter, softening the edges along her soaked skin. It didn’t take long for their sounds to blur, too. There were grunts and sighs and Galadriel couldn’t pretend she whimpered from pain. But she would try, because the game was good. The game was everything.
“It was always going to happen, huh? This. Us. You knew what you were doing that night. You climbed up on the counter and you swung your legs and you – fuck – hit me with those batting lashes. You never wanted Celeborn. Not for this. Never for this. How long have you been waiting for me, little sister?”
Galadriel shuddered, pushing back into his next thrust before she could remember she was supposed to hate it. Halbrand huffed – more pained than a laugh, a break in character. His control was slipping and she was melting from the inside.
“You want to know how long I’ve been waiting? Oh, don’t act like you’re surprised. You’re smarter than that, love. You know I’ve been watching. My sweet, stubborn girl. You want to be a mama? Your baby needs a daddy—” The next thrust made her jaw snap, “You think I was ever going to let it be someone else?”
It was that final scoff that robbed her. Of resistance and shame and the ghost of doubt. Of any sound other than gurgling whimpers. Of taste and color beyond the salt in her mouth and the black shadows of her room. Halbrand was gonna give her a baby, he was gonna—
There was no him coming, her coming. There was just coming, and taking. Coming, and giving. Coming hard and coming deep and coming without stopping. Time bent to the rush of their bodies bleeding together. Halbrand bit her at some point – the pulse where neck and shoulder met, a node of life thudding just below the surface. Galadriel dropped her forehead to the polyester of her cheap carpet and sobbed for the joy of it all.
He collapsed on top of her when it was over – chest to back, chest to floor. Bones and sweat and skin fusing. Their breaths mingled, synchronized, smothered in each other. The brush of his lips along the shell of her ear made Galadriel shiver and clench. Halbrand groaned and stirred himself inside.
“Galadriel.”
It brought new tears to her eyes. How softly he said her name – a prayer and promise and plead for understanding. Halbrand nuzzled her, lips at her temple and cheek. His palm found her chin to pull her closer.
It made no sense that his kiss hurt the most.
***
“What do you think?”
Halbrand looked back down at the little picture. Outside, rain poured down in sheets, wind making the chimes shriek over the din. Galadriel blew at her chamomile tea and waited.
“Celebrían,” he hummed, holding up the sonogram, “Yeah. I like it.”