Chapter Text
CHAPTER 2
LIVE WIRE
The Cheesecake Palace was a decent-sized nudie bar, three blocks down from the restaurant where they'd eaten dinner. Hyde would've preferred to sit in the back somewhere, but Kelso made sure they got side-stage seating. Crap-music pounded through the speakers. The colorful stage lights were bright, gleaming off the strippers' spangly outfits and illuminating their giant racks.
Hyde kept on his shades and nursed his first beer. Strippers and pinup chicks didn't do much for him anymore. Their bodies meant shit to him, nothing to attach to. But he was here for Forman, who still liked whacking off to chicks other than his own.
Hyde had changed, all right, and it still surprised him. Being here made him want to go home. The hook-shaped scar on Jackie's left knee was more interesting than the metal poles on stage. Jackie didn't remember how she got the mark, only that it had been there since she was a kid. It was barely visible except in bright light. He often traced his fingertips over the raised skin, liked to call the scar her anchor. Her nose would wrinkle when he referred to it that way. "It's 'elegantly curved,' Steven," she'd correct. "Anchors belong to smelly, grody sailors."
Man, he really wanted to be home, with her.
The colored lights on stage changed from blue to red, and the music shifted from The Babys to AC/DC. At least Hyde's ears were getting a break. Forman, of course, didn't give a crap about the lights or music. His eyes were fixed on the chicks dancing against the poles.
"Over here, Mama!" Fez said to a topless blonde stripper. He took out a five-dollar bill, but Kelso grabbed it from him.
"Fez, strip clubs are totally what the your kingdom needs." Kelso waved the five at all the strippers. "The only naked chicks you see are in the Fifth Kingdom—but you get them all there, even the uggos and dudes! They just walk around with their junk swinging around, and no one needs to see that."
"Yes, strip clubs are nice..." Fez snatched the five back from Kelso and waved it himself, "but my people wouldn't like them."
Kelso grabbed the five again, and the blonde stripper approached him.
Fez frowned. "That is supposed to be my whore, you sonuvabitch!"
"As Captain of the Guard, I gotta test the strippers out for you," Kelso said, and the topless chick sank onto his lap, "to make sure they're safe."
Forman glanced over at Hyde, and they shared a chuckle.
Fez, though, was glaring at Kelso. "I am your king, damn it, and I said, 'Lap dance!'" He pulled another five from his pocket, and a brunette stripper stuffed it into her black halter top. She stepped off the stage and ground her butt into his lap.
"Man, this is the only way I can get any action in this country," Kelso said once his dance was done. "I hate wishes."
"Magic," Hyde said, "it'll screw you over every time."
A few beers later, Forman pulled some pens from his pocket and gathered up a bunch of napkins. "Okay," he said, "it's time for what I like to call 'a little game'."
"We got plenty enough to do," Kelso said.
"Yeah," Fez said, "like look at those boobs!"
"Eric, I'm sorry," Kelso's attention was firmly planted on stage, "but I can't concentrate on more than six boobs at once."
"Don't you mean 'things'?" Forman said.
Hyde shook his head. "No, he means boobs."
Forman didn't seem to care, He handed everyone a pen and stack of napkins each. "It's my bachelor party. I'm the Emperor, okay? Kelso, Fez, when it's your bachelor parties, we can stare at boobs and ass all you like." He pulled off his Brewers cap. "Everyone write everyone else a question you've always wanted to know. And keep it anonymous."
Kelso and Fez groaned, and Hyde patted Forman's chest thoroughly. Forman laughed at first, as if it tickled him. Then he slapped Hyde away and said, "What the hell are you doing?"
'Trying to find your breasts. You're more girly than the strippers."
Forman pulled a face, and his front choppers caught the stage lights. They glowed brightly, making Hyde damn glad the Tooth Fairy hadn't extracted his own teeth. Forman put his head down afterward and wrote on the napkins. Hyde followed suit, writing his questions, and so did Fez. Kelso eventually joined in, but only after Fez gave him a direct order.
Hyde drank down his third beer while he wrote and ordered a fourth. Watching Kelso take orders from Fez weirded him out. Their dynamics were never like that before, but Kelso accepted Fez's fairy-tale background with no problem. He'd also had the easiest time coping with magic being real. Hyde hated all of it. If had been up to him, the Traveling mirror would've been smashed, keeping Wisconsin and "that place" apart forever.
Everyone folded up their napkins and dropped them into Forman's cap. "I'll go first," Forman said. He rummaged around in the cap and chose a napkin. "'Fez,'" he read, "'why the hell is Forman such a girl?' Yeah..." he crumpled the napkin and tossed it over his shoulder, "you don't have to answer that one, Fez."
"Oh, no. I would not want to disappoint the Emperor on his night."
"But, Fez—"
Fez put up his hand. "The king has spoken, and now he will speak. Eric is a girl because—"
"Okay, thanks," Forman said and held the cap out to Hyde. "Hyde? Your tur—"
"The king has spoken, Eric!" Kelso said and pushed the cap away from Hyde. "Fez, go ahead."
"Eric is a girl because his mommy was the first woman who ever kissed him, saw him naked, and put her breast in his mouth. A-burn!"
"Actually, Fez," Forman said, "my mom never breastfed me. She—"
Hyde grabbed the cap and plucked out a napkin. "Forman, I haven't had enough beer yet for any of that not to be disgusting, so..." He unfolded the napkin and read. "'Kelso, who is the—' I'm not reading that." He shoved the napkin at Kelso.
"Fine," Kelso said and read the question himself. "'Kelso, who is the best lover you've ever had?' Oh, that's easy: Jackie."
Hyde scowled and clenched his fist for a frogging, but Forman said, "Why, because she was your first?"
"Yeah, and it actually meant something, you kn—"
Hyde reached across Forman and rammed his fist into Kelso's shoulder.
"Ow! Hey! Brooke's a close second," Kelso said, rubbing his arm. "Our doin' it made Betsy."
Forman put a hand over his heart. "Kelso, that's actually thoughtful. You've started to think."
Kelso nodded. "Yup. Now that I have a whole kingdom to protect, I'm changing." He waved a dollar bill at a stripper. "Let's have some ass-action! Whoo!" The stripper danced up to him, snatched his dollar with her teeth. Then she wiggled her butt in Kelso's face. "Oh, yeah!"
"My turn." Fez pulled a napkin from the cap. "'Fez, how many magic whores have you slept with now that you're a fabulously sexy and rich king?' Well, I—"
"It can't say that." Hyde swiped the napkin. "Hey, it's a question for me." He cleared his throat and read. "'Hyde, are you really okay with not having sex with anyone but Jackie for the rest of your long, long... long life?'" He wadded up the napkin and chucked it at Forman. "Yup."
"Whipped!" Kelso said.
"Hap—" Hyde shut himself up. That was one word he swore to himself he'd never freakin' say. "Whatever."
"Even if Jackie gets all fat and becomes an uggo?" Fez said, and Hyde reached across both Forman and Kelso to frog him in the arm.
"Why the hell did you have to say that shit to Jackie, man?" Hyde said. "She's insecure enough as it is right now."
"Ai..." Fez cupped his shoulder protectively. "I have never known Jackie to be insecure."
"Yeah, well she is." Hyde rolled his empty beer glass between his palms. "Forman, has Donna gotten weird the last few months, worrying about crap she doesn't have to worry about?"
"Sure. About the wedding decorations and the guest list. With the money Fez gave us, we've had a lot more options this time around."
"No, man, I mean more intangible things. Like whether or not you're still gonna find her hot in fifty years. Or if you're, uh..." Hyde scratched the back of his neck and stared at the red high heels of a stripper. He couldn't make himself confess that second one out loud, Jackie's constant question about him being happy. His mouth could form the words; he just didn't wanna say them. "Has Donna brought up past stuff," he said, "like you turning her cat into roadkill?"
"No," Forman's hand swirled absently in the cap of napkins. "Maybe Jackie's just anxious because you haven't set a date yet. And maybe my wedding to Donna is bringing up her fears and stuff—you know, that you won't actually go through with marrying her."
"Yeah..." Hyde nodded, "maybe. But she hasn't pushed me to talk about our wedding at all, man. Hasn't even left any wedding mags around to hint a it."
"Didn't she get you to take ballroom dancing lessons?" Forman said.
"That was a while back—and she's learning how to cook, trying to learn in exchange. She's, uh... she's changed a lot since our 'collective trip,' and we've been cool, really cool, up 'till about two months ago." Hyde shrugged. "Figured she'd open her yap about the wedding when she was ready, like always... shit."His eyes shut, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He finally got it. "Maybe she's waiting for me to open mine. That would be just like her, playing a freakin' game, testing me one final time before—"
"You thinking of backing out, Hyde?" Kelso said. "'Cause you still have time to reclaim your freedom." He pointed to a stripper." You never have to say 'I don't' to other chicks unless you say 'I do.'"
Hyde shrugged again. "I am free, man."
"By 'free,' you mean out of your damn mind?" Fez said.
"No, I mean free."
"But you're with Jackie," Kelso said.
"Right," Hyde said. "Bein' with her and freedom's the same thing."
Kelso shook his head as if he didn't believe it. "Dude, Jackie's changed you."
"Whatever." Hyde's fist tightened around his empty glass. He was tempted to slam it into Kelso's skull.
"He's right," Forman said. "Jackie's made you soft, man."
"No, she's makes me hard and keeps me that way."
"That's not what I mean. The ass-kicking, raising hell Hyde is gone."
"Yeah?" Hyde motioned to a large-breasted waitress for his bill. "Then why am I gonna kick all of your asses if you don't shut the hell up?"
"Speaking of ass, Hyde," Kelso said, "you don't even care that you've got a hot one being waved in your face."
Hyde turned to the stage. A stripper's toned, barely-covered ass was gyrating right in front of him. He handed Fez a dollar. "Give her this," he said.
Fez brushed the dollar against the stripper's thigh, and she twisted in his direction. "That's right," he said as she moved in front of him. "Dance for your king."
Kelso gasped. "You gave Fez that buck so the stripper would leave you alone!"
"No, I gave it to him 'cause Fez looked lonely," Hyde said.
"Jackie has changed you," Kelso said glumly.
"Oh, Kelso, that is not new." Fez was gazing at the stripper intently, and his voice took on a dreamy quality. "Jackie started to do that when she cried her way to becoming Hyde's prom date."
The large-breasted waitress brought Hyde his bill, but Forman grabbed her before she could leave. "My friend here needs another beer," he said. "He's had two less than everyone else. It's making him say scary, delusional things."
Hyde ignored him and paid the bill. His friends were being dillholes, and he didn't need that shit. Not now. His life was finally fucking good, and if they couldn't get that, they could go screw themselves.
"Hey, where are you going?" Forman said as Hyde stood up.
"Home."
"So you can be Ward Cleaver to Jackie's June?"
"Get bent, Forman!" Hyde stalked off toward the nudie bar's exit and didn't look back.
The living room lights were on, and it was past eleven o'clock. "Jackie?" Hyde said but got no answer. She was probably in the bathroom. He locked the front door and dropped his keys on the bureau. Hopefully, her time at Donna's party had been better than his at the bar. He wandered past his rock posters and the claret-colored sofa to the window. Slivers of night eked through the blinds. He shuddered and suddenly felt very lonely. "Hey, Jackie!" he shouted.
Still no answer.
The cactus from Donna and Forman was sitting on the still, and he stuck his finger in the soil. Dry. He went to the kitchen and filled a glass with water. Then he returned to the cactus and watered it.
"Puddin'?"
He turned around. Jackie was standing in their bedroom doorway, wearing his black Zeppelin shirt, the one he'd given on her seventeenth birthday. A grin lit on his face, burning away the loneliness, and he moved toward her. Their hands found purchase each other's hips, drawing each other in for a kiss.
"I missed you," Jackie said afterward.
"Yeah, me, too." He kept his arms around her, needing to remain close. "Y'know," he said with a smirk, "that's the hottest you've looked in a shirt five-times too big for you."
She smiled coyly. "Is this what you want me to wear on our honeymoon?"
"Hell, yeah..." he slid his hand beneath the shirt and over her bare back, "as long as you got some slutty lingerie under it."
She pulled away before he could reach her shoulder blades. "We didn't go to a strip club for Donna's party," she said. "Donna didn't want to, so we went to a spa instead—and I asked the aestheticians if they thought I'd become ugly in the next five years. They all said no."
Hyde blew out a forceful breath and sat on the top edge of the sofa. "Look, I don't think you're gonna become an uggo, okay? And it's not like I'm gonna have my hair for the rest of my life."
She gasped. "You shut your mouth! Your dad has all his hair, and he's old."
"Whatever. Jackie, what I'm getting at is..." He glanced down at the hardwood floor. All he wanted to do was show her how he felt, but she needed his words. Always needed his damn words now. He glanced back up at her. "Yeah, I started making out with you 'cause I was bored and I thought you were hot, but you think I would've messed around with you just for that? I knew from the first time we swapped spit on the couch what I was getting myself into."
"'Getting yourself into'?" she said. Her eyes were spears, pointed in his direction. They were probably gonna run him through before he was finished speaking.
"I could've found someone who'd never nailed Kelso," he said. "That summer, a boatload of chicks hit on me. They were willing to do a lot dirtier things than we were doing—"
"Oh!" Jackie kicked him in the shin, and he doubled over. Even with her bare foot, her kicks hurt.
"Damn it!" He clutched his shin and peered up at her. "God help me, I started up with you 'cause I fuckin' felt something, okay? For a while. I was sick of having to crush it down. Since Kelso wasn't in the picture anymore, I figured, 'What the hell?'"
A purple firework sizzled in the air above Jackie's head, and now he knew what she was wearing under the Zeppelin shirt. Her eyes had softened. Her eager hands landed on his shoulders, and she kissed him greedily. More bright fireworks shot into the air, and he grabbed the hem of her shirt. But she pulled him toward the bedroom before he could get it off.
The bedroom was a dazzle of color as Jackie danced to no music and slowly dragged off her Zeppelin shirt. Steven sat on the edge of their bed while she stripped, and his hands gripped the comforter. She loved the heat in his eyes and the obvious tension in his body. They told her she was all he wanted.
A giant pink spark exploded between them as she finally removed the shirt. Fez was right about the magic lingerie; she was feeling all kinds of things. Colors burst all around her, and each eruption brought back her hottest moments with Steven, made her re-experience them. Their tryst in Echo lake, their makeout at the Ashby Country Club, the Valentine's Day he'd teased her with little touches but refused to do more until the night.
But he wasn't touching her now. He stayed on the bed, staring at her with what looked like disgust. No, it was the lingerie he was staring at. She glanced down at herself. The iridescent bra glowed red at the peaks of her breasts, and the panties flared bright white.
"Take it off," he said.
"But aren't you curious?" she said. "I mean, Fez told us—"
"I don't need any help knowing where your fun parts are." He gestured to the fading sparks around him. "And this is just... no."
She stuck out her bottom lip in a pout. "I think it's pretty,"
"Then you can have your own, personal Fourth of July, and I'll go sleep on the damn sofa."
"Fine." She removed the bra and tossed it into a corner. She slid off the panties next and kicked them into the same corner. "Happy?"
He answered her by standing, drawing her into a tight embrace, and pressing his lips to the most sensitive spot on her neck—right behind her earlobe. Her eyes drifted closed as his mouth left kiss after warm kiss on her skin, and she forgot all about the lingerie.
In moments, she was on the bed and beneath his mostly naked body. His kisses roamed all over her as if she were the countryside and he wanted to take in every vista. He explored the spaces between her fingers, the underside of her wrists. He toured the scar on her left knee and the valley between her breasts.
"This is better," he said into the skin above her bellybutton.
So much better. She clutched at his bare back as he sucked and licked her inner thigh. One of her most cherished things about him was he gave attention to every part of her body, made all of her feel loved. Not just the obvious parts. But when he focused on the obvious parts, that was wonderful, too.
His face moved between her thighs, and his palms rested on her hips. She was able to lock fingers with him while his lips and tongue sent pleasure pulsing deep inside her. He varied his technique to make it last, and her head leaned back into the pillows.
"Oh, God," she said and squeezed his hands. "Steven..."
She climaxed amid a symphony of her own moans and Steven's own pleased exhalations, and she was glad not to be distracted by those magical fireworks. Being with him was more than enough.
He kissed his way back up to her collarbone, to the hollow of her neck, and then to her mouth. They made out for a while, and it delighted her. It always did, that he had enough energy afterward to kiss her.
"Puddin'," she said when he eventually stood from the bed, "don't go."
He nodded down at his boxers. "This isn't gonna take care of itself, Grasshopper."
She sat up and patted the sheets. "Let me." He began to object, but she said, "It's not 'payment,' baby. I want to."
He returned to the bed and kissed her again before lying down on his back. She crawled on top of him, positioning her hips over his covered erection. He'd told her long ago that he had no thoughts of reciprocation when he went down on her. He just wanted her to feel good, and it was one of the reasons she'd fallen in love with him.
She ground into him lightly while kissing the most sensitive spot of his own neck, right below his jawline where his pulse beat. His breath released heavily, and his hands buried themselves in her hair. His voice, though, remained silent until she slinked down his body and pulled off his boxers.
"Fuck, I love you," he let out, accompanied by soft, incredulous laughter. The sound of him lit her up like a cloudless sky, and the of sight of his erection made her hungry for him again.
She surrounded him with her mouth and worked him exactly how he liked it. His fingers grazed the top of her head—not pushing at her, but caressing her hair lightly. He didn't thrust at her either, but she knew his other hand was knotted up in the sheets to keep himself under control.
Steven, she thought and slid her palm over his warm stomach. It rose and fell beneath her hand. Steven... His breathing was labored. His lungs were sucking in air desperately, ecstatically. It was amazing to her, absolutely amazing how happy his joy made her... and how different the experience of going down on him was than with Michael.
Stupid Michael. She was barely sixteen when she first went down on him, and the idiot had "accidentally" released in her mouth. She swore she'd never go down on another boy as long as she lived. But Steven had never asked for it. She initiated their first time—and he called her up to him that first time before he'd climaxed.
She questioned him then, and he said, "I want to see you." So she returned to his eyes, and the look in them spurred tears in hers. It was clear his pleasure was mostly derived from her,not from what she was doing to him, and she almost broke down in sobs that night. She was falling for him, too deeply, and she feared she couldn't crawl back out. But she didn't cry. She'd pulled herself together and kissed him until he came.
Now, his groans were growing louder and shorter, and she slowed down a little. "Jackie," he said, "Jackie, you better come up here—before I come down there." It was the first comprehensible sentence he'd spoken since she started on him.
He'd never climaxed in her mouth before, not once, always called her up to him when he was on the brink. And it made her curious. What would happen, besides the obvious, if she continued? How would he feel? Would he like it?
She kept her mouth on him and sped up.
"Jackie! Now."It was an order, and she let him go. She crept back up and found him smiling despite his urgent tone. He cupped her face and questioned her with his eyes, but she kissed him gently. Her fingertips stroked his sideburns; she loved their rough feel on her smooth skin. Then she stroked lower until he came.
He cleaned them both up with damp paper towels. Afterward he said, "What the hell do you think you were doing?"
"I don't know." She tore the dirtied sheet off their bed and dumped it into their laundry bag. Then she left the room, still naked, and grabbed a fresh sheet from the linen closet. When she returned, Steven's gray sweatpants were on him, and he was glaring at her. "I thought..." She sighed. "I thought maybe you'd enjoy it more if I—"
"Told you a long time ago you never have to do that, okay? I'm not that kind of asshole."
"Puddin'..." She tossed the fresh sheet onto the bed and threw her arms around his waist. It took a moment for his hands to respond, but once they settled onto her back, she snuggled into him.
His cheek pressed softly into her temple. "Don't do it again," he said.
She held him tighter as a feeling of horror wormed its way into her heart. She kept acting on fleeting thoughts, on feelings that usually evaporated within moments of having them. It was as if a hidden part of herself had been exposed, like a sparking wire with its covering frayed off. She continually shocked herself, shocked him. She didn't want to, but she couldn't seem to stop.