Chapter Text
It’s only four months before her wedding when Belly Conklin accepts that her sexual proclivities might be somewhat of a deal-breaker for her. More importantly, it’s only four months before the wedding when she realizes that the entire thing is Conrad Fisher’s fault.
The realization comes to her at, perhaps, the most inopportune moment possible—with her fiancé inside her, groaning in her ear as he comes. “I love you, Belly,” Jeremiah says sweetly, and all she can do is shudder in disgust. Briefly and terribly, she wonders why she didn’t just break up with him the first time he proposed marriage. She wonders why, instead, she waited another year before saying yes.
“Did you come, too?” Jeremiah asks her, panting, and Belly realizes that her full-body ick, thank God, was definitely interpreted as the typical full-body-convulsion she has when she orgasms.
She smiles. “Of course I did,” she tells him, which isn’t a global lie, per se. It’s not Jeremiah who’s the fucked up one.
With a bit of firm teaching when they first got together, he’s become what anyone else would describe as the ideal sexual partner. 99 percent of the time, he makes her come first (the other one percent is only because he’s sometimes so eager that he can’t control himself, and really, who is Belly to complain that her fiancé loves her too much?). He never pushes; he always asks for consent; he holds her hand while they make love; he gets her a glass of water afterward; he’s never once complained about going down on her; he tells her how beautiful she is every single time.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? How mind-numbingly-fucking-sweet the entire thing is.
Belly knows that it’s fucked up of her to think about Jeremiah’s brother while he tells her that he loves her. Fucked up that while he comes literally inside her—she’s had an IUD for years now—she’s picturing Conrad’s condescending smirk, his head cocked to the side, looking down at her.
It’s been years since she’s seen his face. She imagines that, after years of med school, it’s changed. Offhandedly, Belly wonders if 25 is old enough to get grey hair.
It’s been years since Jeremiah’s seen him either. After their last fight, Jeremiah had blocked him on all channels. At first, their dad had tried to resolve the chasm in his sons’ relationship, but as the seasons passed by, his efforts became more and more half-hearted. They all understand, now, that Conrad gets Easter and Jeremiah gets Thanksgiving. Christmases trade off. Every holiday, Belly wrestles with the guilt that sits in her stomach, pretending it’s just bloat from the ginormous feast prepared for the day.
She wonders if one day, Jeremiah will regret not inviting his brother to their wedding.
“That was amazing,” Jeremiah sighs, and she can tell he really means it, too. Even after almost five years together, he still wants her that much. “I love you.”
“It was,” Belly says. She does not say: Why are you so fucking nice to me? She does not say: Sometimes, I wish you would hold me down a little more. Fuck me a little harder. Ignore me a little more. She does not say: I think I want you to be mean to me. Please, be mean to me. Make me come so fucking hard I cry. Then, make me come again, until I’m begging you to stop. Then, don’t. Make me take it anyway. She definitely does not say: Conrad would. He would do it. He’s done it before.
“I love you,” she says instead.
Jeremiah grins, and Belly’s heart breaks just a little bit more.
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Belly muffles a scream into her pillow. She understands why Jeremiah wanted to child-lock their WiFi network; they had both felt horrible about themselves after Jeremiah’s cousin had accidentally stumbled across some—in the politest terms Belly could think of—unsavoury content while using the desktop computer in Jeremiah’s office.
Auntie, Belly still remembers Amelia’s voice saying in vivid clarity. Why is this man naked?
The apologies and amendments that she and Jeremiah had to pitch to Skye when they came to pick their foster sister up—they all decided not to tell Aunt Julia—after that had been mortifying.
I love that Mom is fostering now, Skye had cried into Belly’s after they had forgiven her, more concerned with their own family than Belly’s next fuck up, but what do I know about nine-year-old girls? I love that we’re giving kids who don’t have one a home. It’s been so good for Mom to feel like she has a family, you know? But sometimes, I don’t know if I can do this.
Skye is, all things considered, an incredible sibling-slash-parental-figure. Their devotion to Amelia often makes Belly feel like she’s play-acting at adulthood, like one day, Laurel is going to knock on her and Jeremiah’s front door and remind her that it’s time to come home for dinner. Sure, she and Jeremiah go through the motions, but the whole thing feels fake sometimes.
She's an awful cook, Jeremiah hates cleaning so much that he has a housekeeper come in once a week to tidy up, and Belly’s part-time gig at the publishing house doesn’t feel like a real adult job. She mostly just makes graphics on Canva and gossips with her coworkers over email. Meanwhile, with how much Julia works, it feels like Skye is raising an entire kid. Steven is a software developer for Google. Even Taylor is starting to get serious about life, although it makes Belly feel better that she’s still deferring college graduation to play volleyball while she figures out her career path. Conrad is working part-time in a neurology lab at Stanford (so sue her—she sometimes stalks his LinkedIn). Her whole attempt at adulthood feels like it pales in comparison to what everyone else has going on, and besides, real adults don’t get child-locked out of watching porn in their own homes.
Sighing deeply, Belly switches her phone’s WiFi off and turns her data on. She really needs to get a new phone plan; she can’t stop using data like this. Jeremiah had laughed last month when she had gone over her limit. How did you go an entire gigabyte over, Belly? What were you doing? Watching hot, hot porn?
She supposes that it’s unfathomable to Jeremiah that she might not be entirely fulfilled. That yeah, she is spending her data plan watching ‘hot, hot porn.’ Belly is well aware that her scrolling habits are mortifying.
Fuck Me Hard like You Hate Me: Submissive Slut Dominated and Made to Cum
Humiliating my Girlfriend by Calling Her Degrading Names and Slapping Her
Watch this Younger Woman Submit to the Man of Her Dreams
Tied-Up Teen Gets Earth-Shattering Orgasm Ruined by Pussy Slapping
Neighbour Girl is Humiliated and Used by Older Boy Next Door
Belly simply closes her eyes and chooses at random. It’s too mortifying to make the choice herself. And that’s always been her problem, hasn’t it? How much she hates making the choice herself.
Conrad, then Jeremiah. Jeremiah, then Conrad. Looking back, she doesn’t know if she ever consciously chose to be here. It just sort of…happened. Just like kissing Jeremiah just sort of happened. Just like moving in with Jeremiah just sort of happened. Just like getting engaged to Jeremiah just sort of happened.
If Conrad had been in his place, Belly thinks, she would not be here. Conrad would have made her choose. Conrad would have understood, implicitly, that while she might hate making decisions, she should be forced to. What are you doing, Belly Conklin? the Conrad in her head says. Are you really going to go through with this? Are you really going to marry my brother and then think about me fucking you while you wear your pretty, white dress? Come on, Belly. You’re better than that.
Shut the fuck up, she tells the Conrad in her head. You don’t know me. You don’t know what I want.
The Conrad in her head laughs, cruelly. She thinks that over time, she’s made him meaner than he really is. It’s a disservice to the kindness in him, the way she’s turned him into her own personal fantasy. Yes, I do. I’ve always known what you wanted, Belly. Can he say the same?
The fucked up sex between her and Conrad hadn’t always been that way. Or rather, it had started out as something else that got twisted and gnarled over time, until maybe it wasn’t even sex anymore. Maybe, it was just hate. (Maybe, Belly thinks on her worst days, it was love.)
She doesn’t know if it’s something wrong with her, with him, or if maybe their individual brands of fucked-up-ness were always destined for each other.
All she knows is that she can still remember Conrad smirking at her, a bottle of beer sitting beside him and his feet dipped in the pool. The artificial light had hit his face in a way that made him look haunted; older. Belly had been in a one-piece swimsuit, hair wet and arms shivering from the cool night; she was giggling, citing a fact about the brain she had once learned from him.
“God,” Conrad had interrupted her, all nonchalance and condescension. “Do you memorize every single thing that I’ve ever said?”
It’s embarrassing, Belly translated his words for herself, that I’m your entire world.
Conrad had never been good at teasing—usually, it just came out mean. He was always too serious, too focused, too rigid to pass off his jabs as banter. He didn’t have Jere’s natural laugh or ability to joke.
“Get over yourself,” she had said, finally, all cool rage on the surface. But inside, her stomach had tightened in an unfamiliar way. The look on his face made her feel small, and suddenly, that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. It was humiliating to be called out the way she had just been, but there was something about it that wasn’t upsetting, per se. She felt seen, as if Conrad had just exposed the most mortifying part of her to the world, but he didn’t think it was embarrassing. If he did, he wouldn’t be holding eye contact with her the way he was. If he did, he would be looking away.
Look at you, his eyes said, even as he stayed silent. You can’t even deny it. I’m right.
Conrad took a sip of his beer, and Belly’s eyes had trailed over the neck of the bottle. She watched, her breath hitched, as a droplet of condensation rolled off of it and down Conrad’s chin, then his neck.
And then the moment was over; Conrad was standing up and Belly was flailing in the water, trying to figure out what had just happened. If anything had just happened.
Sometimes, she thinks that was the beginning of everything.
He had been sweet, that first time. Belly feels disgusting every time she thinks it, but her first time with Conrad had been like sleeping with Jeremiah. In fact, the first time she had sex with Jeremiah, she already knew half of what he liked—he was more like his brother than he ever wanted to admit.
It’s something that she’ll never admit to anyone, even Taylor, who’s begged countless times for her to compare the brothers. C’mon, Belly, she begs sometimes when they’re having a girls night in, too many margaritas in and flopped facedown on the shag carpet in Taylor’s apartment. Who has the bigger dick? You can tell me. I’m not gonna tell anyone. I just gotta know. Please, babe! You’ve been holding out on me for years. You’ve chosen, so it’s not like it matters anymore, right? You know I’m Team Jelly all the way.
That first night in Cousins, Conrad had been gentle; uncertain. In fact, it had been her who had done the teasing.
Yeah, she remembers saying when he protested the cold, both of them still waiting for the fire to warm the home, so unused to the winter chill in their summer home. That’s ‘cause you’re cold-hearted.
For everyone else, maybe, Conrad had responded, the love in his eyes almost too much to bear. Not for you.
When things began to escalate, Conrad didn’t push. He asked for consent; he held her hand while they made love; he got her a glass of water afterward; he graciously went down on her; he told her how beautiful she was the entire time. The entire thing had been perfect. When Belly thinks about it, she still isn’t entirely sure when things changed. Or, had they been that way the entire time?
Who was she, she wonders, before she had this dark wanting inside of her? Where was the young girl content to be made love to in front of the fireplace? Where was the woman that Jeremiah had proposed to? The woman that he wanted to marry? Sometimes, Belly’s afraid she’ll never be able to find her again.
“Dad’s getting after me about sending the invites out again,” Jeremiah hollers across the house.
Belly’s got a loaf of bread out on the counter and two jars of jam in her hands. “What?” she yells back distractedly, weighing the pros and cons of raspberry versus strawberry. She’s on her lunch break, not that she really needs one, anyway. It isn’t like her job is cracking down the whip on her schedule, provided that she sends her boss the graphics she requested by the end of the day.
“The invites?” Jeremiah walks into the kitchen, a frown gracing his face. His hair is rumpled, and Belly bites back a smile at the errant curl that’s threatening to run away from his forehead. He always messes with his hair when he’s stressed; she smoothes it back into place for him, and Jeremiah’s frown turns into a small smile.
“For what?” Belly asks, squeezing her fiancé’s hand before turning away to grab a butter knife.
“For what? The wedding, Bells. Where’s your head at, huh?”
Belly doesn’t want to answer that one truthfully. “God, Jere, I’m sorry. I’m just—you know. Busy at work. The usual.” She’s grateful that he lets that one slide; they both know that her work is never busy. “Why’s Adam getting after us again? We sent the save-the-dates months ago. I’m getting to it, I swear.” Belly is fully aware of how whiny her voice has gotten, and she has to clear her throat and straighten her back to get rid of it. Jeremiah’s never liked when she gets like that, though quite understandably.
“We’re only three months out, Belly. It’s not that crazy of him.” Every time Jeremiah sides with his father, Belly develops a terrible, bitter frustration that they’ve mended their relationship. Back when they were teenagers, Jere could hardly stand to be in a room with his father without causing a fight. Now, with Conrad out of the picture, Adam’s been forced to reconnect with his younger son, and to Belly, it always feels like a two-against-one battle when she’s around the Fishers.
“Google says six to eight weeks is fine! Your dad got married in, like, the 1920s. And he got divorced. What’s he know about throwing a wedding, anyway?” Jeremiah hands her the almond butter from the fridge questioningly as he watches her spread jam on her toast; she hesitates. “Mm, can I have the peanut butter instead, please?”
He sighs, rifling around the second shelf until he finds it. “I’m pretty sure my parents had a 90s wedding.”
“It was still the 1900s,” she huffs, but there’s no real malice in it.
Jeremiah laughs, running a hand through her hair. “My dad would die if he heard you refer to the 90s as another century. You were born less than a century later, kid.”
“Kid?” she protests, jabbing him in the ribs. “I’m one year younger than you!”
“Yeah,” he laughs, “and don’t you forget it.”
It’s in moments like these that she remembers why she’s marrying this man. Jeremiah Fisher is—above all else, her problems be damned—her best friend.
“Fine,” Belly declares, taking a bite of her sandwich. “I’ll get the invitations out this week, okay? Tell your dad to lay off. Oh, and ask him to bring some of that pie he brought last time when he comes by for dinner on Sunday. I’ve been drooling thinking about that rhubarb.”
“Crumb on your chin,” Jeremiah says gently, running his thumb along the corner of your mouth. His eyes crinkle when he does. “And boy do I know it, Belly Button. I share a bed with you, you know. I wake up every day with your rhubarb-dream-drool on my pillow.”
“You do not, Jeremiah Fisher! You liar!” Belly waves her peanut butter and jam sandwich at him threateningly. In retaliation, he bites it. “That’s my lunch!”
Jeremiah shrugs. “And you’re my snack. What can I say?” He kisses the top of her head.
“You can say that you’ll finalize the guests you want invited,” she grumbles, leaning into him. “If I have to make the invitations, you can make sure we have everyone’s names spelled correctly.”
At her request, Belly feels Jeremiah’s body go rigid, and she suddenly knows what they’re both thinking. They’d skipped him on the save-the-dates, but there’s still time to invite him. She knows that Jeremiah’s got Conrad’s address stuffed away in the drawer of his work desk; she saw it in there when she went looking for a pen, once.
It’s your brother, she wants to say. I can’t make this decision for you. You have to choose.
But Belly is a coward, so she doesn’t. Instead, she just laughs lightly, pretending not to notice. “And remember, we said no plus-one for Taylor. She’s going through way too crazy of a dating phase right now, and I don’t want her flavour of the week in our wedding photos.”
“Who, Justin?” Jeremiah seems relieved at the distraction.
“Justin? God, no. He was six guys ago. She’s onto Cosmo now.”
“Taylor’s dating a guy named Cosmo? Where does she find these—? Actually, never mind, I think that’s about as much as I want to know about Taylor’s dating life. Eat your sandwich, Belly. I’ll get you the list by Friday.”
“Love you,” she calls automatically as Jeremiah leaves the kitchen, peanut butter tacked to the roof of her mouth.
“Love you,” he echoes.
Today, she thinks they might both mean it.
In hindsight, she should have known that Conrad would be like that during sex.
Meticulous. Demanding. In control.
Belly now understands that sex isn’t about who you’re forced to be outside of it. It’s about who you want to be at your core.
She should have expected that Conrad—who had spent his entire life consumed with the terrible pressure of what even Jeremiah had later admitted was horrific parentification, and feeling out of control when everyone expected him to have everything together all the time—could not get enough of the illusion that he had authority over something in his life.
The more she thought about it, the more she thought that perhaps, they’d both always been this way. Even as children, Conrad knew that he couldn’t control Jeremiah. His younger brother loved him, sure, but he never idolized him the way Belly did.
She remembers Conrad testing those boundaries as children. He never asked for anything cruel—he wasn’t mean, even if Jeremiah liked to say so, sometimes—but Belly knows now that he sometimes pushed just a little too hard.
Jere, Conrad would demand, with all the audacity of an 11-year-old bossing around a younger sibling. Get me a soda from the fridge.
Get it yourself, Jeremiah would say, sticking his tongue out. Me and Steven are playing Super Mario.
Then, Conrad would turn to her. Belly? he would smile, and it was enough; she would bound out of her chair, hopping to the fridge, heart soaring because Conrad needed her.
Belly doesn’t always like thinking too hard about how, in later years, when they were both playing at being in an adult relationship, they’d found themselves recreating that exact dynamic.
Fuck Jeremiah, she remembers Conrad saying as he paced frustratedly through the kitchen. He thinks that he and Steven are—I don’t know, businessmen or some bullshit. It’s not his money! He thinks he can just ask Dad to give him a loan? For Christ’s sake, he’s 19 years old, what’s he know about building capital? He’d trailed off, turning toward her with a wild look in his eyes. Belly, I—
Even then, she’d known what he needed. I’m here for you, she murmured, kissing him gently and smoothing the frustration from his brow. Then, she kissed him again, softly, so softly, until there was nothing gentle left. She kissed him until the tension left his body and he spun her around, bending her over the kitchen counter and yanking up her skirt. It didn’t matter that she was wearing only simple, cotton panties underneath; Conrad’s breath had hitched when he saw them, and then he was pushing two fingers inside of her in a way that should have been too much, too fast. But it didn’t seem to matter, because Belly was soaked before he even touched her, and she came faster than she’d ever come before, with her hands held behind her back, not sure if she was squirming to get away or closer to him.
I need you, he’d gasped into the back of her neck, searing open-mouthed kisses onto her skin. You make everything better, Belly, c’mon, let me have you, that’s it, that’s a girl—
Sometimes, she still fantasizes about the way he felt inside of her that night. Pressed in so tightly from behind, her up on her tip-toes, his breath at her ear, the way he’d groaned in a horrible, perverse delight when she’d let out a ragged whimper of pain when he pushed her head too firmly against the counter.
It wasn’t that Jeremiah wasn’t willing to be adventurous. That they, too, hadn’t fucked in the kitchen. It’s just that the one time Belly asked him to hold her down, to please, Jere, just have your way with me, he had only laughed nervously.
Whoa, Belly, he had said, holding his hands up in surrender. Slow down, okay? You don’t have to, like, degrade yourself like that.
In hindsight, Belly probably should’ve realized that things were wrong much sooner.