Please, Bryan Adams, get out of my head!

[helvirago]

590 words! I'm getting better at, well, not going on so long. If you don't like Stella, I suggest you move along, there's nothing to see here. NC-17, I think.



She would have told him not to get the tattoo, if he'd asked her, but she kind of likes it. She never says it out loud, but sometimes she catches a glimpse of it and shivers.

She would have laughed at the idea that she'd wind up dating "Stan-the-man" Kowalski, but even at twelve it was a rush to have him tagging along with her, her own personal devoted little bad boy.

She would have been offended if anyone'd said she found dangerous men attractive, but she let Ray go all the way after the prom because he didn't talk too much and his leather jacket felt beaten and broken in under her fingertips.

Most of what she says about Ray isn't true, because the truth is silly, and embarrassing, and fragile. The truth is, he's a bad boy with a sweet heart. Truth is, the tattoo does turn her on, and the leather jacket, and the car, and even his heavy accent and the half-crazy way he acts. Ray thinks she's smart and he thinks she's sexy, and he thinks she can be anything she wants to, and he argued her out of listening to her mother about college. Her mother thought she needed to get out of the city and go to a college good enough to find a decent husband. Ray thought she should do and go wherever the hell she wanted, and he'd help her, and he didn't even mention the husband part. And when after her freshman year her advisor mentioned law school, Ray didn't laugh along with her when she told him about it. Ray dropped out of school and got a job and opened a savings account. Now he carries a gun, and she doesn't like telling her friends about it because she thinks it sounds like she's living some ridiculous adolescent fantasy -- her boyfriend had a tattoo and a reputation and a car, which was one thing, but handcuffs? She rolls her own eyes thinking about it, but doesn't let it bother her when Ray cuffs her to the bedposts.

And now they've got a week left before her first year, and they're making the most of it. Stella loves it like this, when he hits something just right inside her that makes shivers run all over her body and her eyelids drop, but she forces her head up and keeps her eye on the mirror, because she loves watching Ray fuck her. He's got his eyes closed and one hand on her shoulder and one on her breast. He's biting his lip and doing that strange frown that means he's trying like hell not to come yet, and Stella tightens up the muscles around his cock and he gasps, which makes her shudder again and push back against him. She does this to him, taunts him and goads him and makes it the best it ever could be, and he thinks she's the sexiest thing ever. And when he opens his eyes he looks straight into hers in the mirror, and his lips curl in his most dangerous grin, and he grabs her around the waist and pulls her up so they're both on their knees and he can hit that spot harder. She comes, gasping for breath, and as soon as she can she slits her eyes open to watch him. When Ray doesn't know she's looking he looks at her like she's the best thing that could ever happen to a guy. And she's going to be.

Comments

[brooklinegirl.livejournal.com]

oh my god, this is tremendous (Though I do find it amusing that this challenge and the damn canon has us all writing straight sex ).

This:
She would have been offended if anyone'd said she found dangerous men attractive, but she let Ray go all the way after the prom because he didn't talk too much and his leather jacket felt beaten and broken in under her fingertips.

...was wonderful. What a great paragraph, so much said in so few words. I love it. And this:

And when after her freshman year her advisor mentioned law school, Ray didn't laugh along with her when she told him about it. Ray dropped out of school and got a job and opened a savings account. Now he carries a gun, and she doesn't like telling her friends about it because she thinks it sounds like she's living some ridiculous adolescent fantasy

Wow. I do love that, Ray, so hard and punk on the outside, but he loves her, he really does, and he's smart, too, and he does what he thinks is right and not what everyone else thinks he should, and makes Stella start to maybe think that way as well.

Simply lovely.

[helvirago]

Wow, thank you! Yeah, this is the burden of loving a Ray, I think -- the inescapable fact of teenage lusting-after-girls. Not that I think he didn't lust after the boys, just that there's no way to get around the girls.

I've had boyfriends like this -- sweet and smart and wonderful, but you're sort of embarrassed to describe them to people. I can just hear Stella's friends: "Okay, so he has a leather jacket, and a cool car, and a tattoo, and he smokes. Let me guess, Stella, is he a boxer, too? Oh, wait, even better! Does he fight crime?"

[mei-x.livejournal.com]

When Ray doesn't know she's looking he looks at her like she's the best thing that could ever happen to a guy. And she's going to be.

I really like this. So often, I'm inclined to dismiss Stella and not care about her motivations, but pieces like yours makes me care.

[helvirago]

Thank you! Yeah, she comes off as kind of a bitch in canon (although there's a scene in Strange Bedfellows that really makes me curious), but I figure, aren't exes always? I mean, even those exes I really care about I still have to be sort of bitchy to. Otherwise we'd still be dating, and there are good reasons we're not.

So I figure... she could be an awful person, but really it's just as plausible that she's not, and that she loved him, and that it ended.

[helvirago]

The first things I wrote were het, but it'd been so long I thought I was off it completely! Guess not. Equal-opportunity smuttist, here.

You notice I've managed to overwhelm Mr. Adams with Olivia Newton-John and the cast of Grease.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

This was wonderful, and psychologically true, and, like, I just loved being in this Stella's head. And I liked your technique of getting us to see Ray, doubled, both through her eyes and the mirror, and you built up to it so slowly with the "bad boy" aspect of Ray's character (handcuffs! hee) that it felt totally natural and believable by time we got there. Loved it, thanks!

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Oh, and PS--I apologize for the Bryan Adams. (sheepish)

[helvirago]

Thank you!

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

Bad boy with a sweet heart.
Splat. ::Shay melts to floor::
Frankly, I don't mind reading a good het sex scene. And this one is a GREAT scene. I like Stella a lot, and yes, what you said about exes. I think she is quite vulnerable in Strange Bedfellows. Or at least she shows vulnerability around the edges of her formidable defenses.

[helvirago]

She does express willingness to sleep with him not once but twice in that episode. And a great deal of fondness. I think it must be pretty damn hard for her to keep from being sucked in.

Thanks! He really is heart-of-gold boy, isn't he?

[helvirago]

Well, see? We were leaving it to you!

[akite.livejournal.com]

I was never a big fan of The Stella before I joined this group. All these stories from inside her head make me understand her better. This one is dynamite. Kind of sad too, knowing that she's not up to the task she sets herself in that last line.

[helvirago]

Well, I'm not exactly a fan of hers, I just think she gets a bad rap sometimes. I don't know if she's not up to it, so much... I just think there was a time when she must have loved him a lot, and in fact she still does. But...

Well, it's the "but"s that'll break your heart, of course. I thought I'd try for the good part this time!

[ozsaur.livejournal.com]

I like that Ray supported Stella in going to law school. I wonder just how much of what Stella becomes is because of Ray and vice versa? This story makes Stella very real and human.

[helvirago]

In my first draft, Stella was thinking about becoming a cop!

And then I thought, "And what, Ray talks her out of it? How likely does that sound?" But I bet there was a point where they were good for each other, because... well, because there usually is. Thank you!

[rowanfairchild.livejournal.com]

Oh, I liked this! I'm such a sucker for speculation about the Ray/Stella relationship, what brought them together and what drove them apart. Really neat take. He's kind of the 'safe' bad boy, huh? *g*

[helvirago]

Oh, he totally is! He's a bad boy to everybody else, but given that he was in love with her at THIRTEEN...

[shrift.livejournal.com]

Oh, but you give good Stella.

(God, that sounds terribly porny. I'm so proud of me.)

I'm always interested in seeing how other people think of Ray and Stella's relationship, how they got together, what she thought of Ray -- because on the show we mostly got the bad, and not more than a peek at the good.

And I *totally* get why Stella would choose Ray when you write stuff like this:

Ray thinks she's smart and he thinks she's sexy, and he thinks she can be anything she wants to, and he argued her out of listening to her mother about college.

[helvirago]

Oh, yeah. I mean, can you imagine having a Ray Kowalski of your very own in junior high? Or... you know, at all, but that's different.

Anyway, I think I like Stella. Okay, her post-Kowalski taste in men I find questionable. And yeah, that's why she's so interesting -- it shows Stella-as-exwife, which is not terribly revealing.

Thank you, not Nestra.

[the-star-fish.livejournal.com]

Lovely work, Hel. I, too, uncool as I am, have dated boys that I didn't think my friends understood. This was a marvelous look inside Stella's head.

(I shiver at the tattoo sometimes, too.)

[helvirago]

At the risk of sounding totally uncreative... my most recent ex fell perfectly into a type, so many people categorized him as soon as they met him, and he also had a fantastic tattoo. But, you know, there's a person! Inside! Swear! Eventually you just go along with it. "You're dating him?" "Oh hell yeah. I've decided to become a biker chick, too. Uh huh."

Thank you!