Otto Burnwell

Accidentally Shot for a Deer

You stare at your fiancé kneeling between your legs. She looks up at you, your crank in her hand, her lips wet, her lipstick not quite rubbed away.

You’d asked her a question you meant for a compliment. The kind of nonsense question you might blurt out when a woman has you so close to a climax that unruly words fly out of your mouth.

Now you wish you hadn’t. You were not prepared for her answer that would make you an accessory-after-the-fact to murder.

You were tense. She asked if it was pre-wedding jitters. You let her think that was it. So, she led you to the bathroom, sat you on her mom’s vanity stool, and went to work making magic with her mouth.

It didn’t take long to melt the tension, because she is spectacular. Her head bobbing, coming down left, lifting, coming down right, taking you all the way in. Her nose brushes against the skin of your belly. It’s somehow more intimate and immediate than her tongue on your balls. She had you breathing harder, making that long, elastic moan that let her know how fine a time you were having, and what a great job she was doing.

Loosened up like that, the question popped out of you.

“How did you get to be so good at this?”

It was unintended, but it was not a totally random question. You did mean it to be a compliment. For as long as you two have been together, you often wondered how she acquired such a delightful skill.

But last night you had all the more reason to wonder how she achieved such oral artistry.

Some guys from her graduating class got together and hauled you off to the Horseman out on Division Road for a pre-wedding boozer. It didn’t take many drinks before they got around to celebrating your fiancé’s magnificent mouth. They all had opinions on what you could expect if you lived long enough to reach your honeymoon, but they denied any personal experience to back it up.

You played the good sport, went along with the joking. She’s allowed to have a past. As long as it stays in the past.

But one thing you did notice was the way they denied any first-hand knowledge of her talent seemed less about saving your feelings and more about convincing each other.

The question remained at the forefront of your mind this morning. It kept you keyed up, which you tried passing off as those pre-wedding jitters. Which led your fiancé to prevent you getting cold feet by hauling you aside and sucking you off. The question, percolating in your head, popped free when your brain was otherwise engaged.

You didn’t really want an answer. You figured she would hum an appreciative “mm-hmm” that would buzz you through her lips.

But she didn’t. She sat back on her heels, still holding your pecker, rubbing her thumb over the tip.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked, and you said, “what?” because your brain wasn’t taking messages at the time as you savored how your entire nervous system melted into a hot, liquid state.

“Do you really want to know?” she repeated, and now you floated up through the fog of fellatio to focus on what she was saying.

“How I got to be so good,” she said. “At this,” she added, waggling your pecker like a sock.

“Sure,” you said. Because you did. Even before the guys last night, you would let yourself drift into fantasies about how she mastered the mechanics of oral sex. You would imagine her studying the geography of the penis in a Biology class full of girls. Or practicing on toys and vegetables with her girlfriends at slumber parties. Or fumbling with the real thing on one or more of those guys from last night.

“Did somebody say something?”

“When?”

“Last night?”

“Last night? No. Nothing special.”

“What did they say?”

“They talked about a lot of things.” You told her you couldn’t recall all that much, there was so much to drink, but you were deflating in her grip, an inverse Pinocchio, shrinking the more you lied.

She leaned forward, mouthing you a little bit more, as you tried to conjure some great distractor to put her back on track.

“All I meant,” you said, “was how good you are. Like you studied.” You don’t know when to shut up when you’re nervous, or embarrassed, or lying. With your dick between the teeth of a woman you know can get really angry. Whose years of orthodontia would ensure a clean bite-through if she decides to take your balls off.

“I’ll tell you,” she says, “since you asked. But you promise not to freak out?”

“Freak out?”

“I just don’t want you freaking out.”

So you prepared yourself to hear her tell you it was every one of those guys. Like a lending library of dicks checked out to take home and practice.

“Sure.”

You held your breath.

Instead—

Instead, she starts off by telling you her nickname from back then. Two-by-four. It made her insecure having a younger sister already wearing a full bra, and herself still flatter than a baloney sandwich. It frustrated her, making her feel insecure. She mentioned it to Doc who lived next door. A friend of the family. Not a doctor doctor, but an assistant professor at the community college. A teacher tutoring her in math. He was way older, not someone she thought twice about. She felt safe mentioning it to him, treating it like a joke. After a few times, he told her a trick he knew that was guaranteed to help girls fill out. Very scientific, he said. Kind of like a jump-start to wake up the reproductive system. Guaranteed safe, he told her. One hundred percent natural ingredients. You might not like the taste at first, he told her, but it only works if you swallow.

Of course, she wanted to believe him. He taught college. Read books and stuff. He was way smart. It made a kind of sense. She thought it worth a try.

“You can learn a lot, she said, from a horny guy who lives alone.”

“Shit.” The thought of your fiancé’s mouth wrapped around some old guy’s donk was creepy. That seemed worse than a bunch of kids her own age experimenting on each other.

“Yes.” She flicked you with her fingernail, but it was siesta time for Mr. Pony.

Shit.

“Is he going to be at the wedding,” you asked, because you already hate the smirk on his face as you two face each other in the receiving line after the ceremony.

“No,” she said.

“Good.”

“He’s dead.”

“Good.”

“Out hunting with Daddy and Uncle Peck. Accidentally shot for a deer.”

You were relieved. You won’t have to look the guy in the eye and see a merry little twinkle of mischief, seeing himself as some kind of old stud, in her mouth long before you were. You said out loud, “Sorry to hear,” but not really. Then it registered.

“Shot? Hunting with your Dad and your uncle?”

“Yes.”

“An accident?”

“Everybody says so. I wasn’t the first one he ‘helped,’” she air-quotes with her free hand.

Shit.

“You should count yourself lucky,” she says.

“Why?”

“I couldn’t get near anyone else after that.” She gives you a long lick.

“But an accident?” you repeat, like you may have to get out a dictionary and read the definition to her to be certain you both mean the same thing.

“Says it on the coroner’s report. Accidentally shot for a deer. You can go look it up if you want. Just—”

“What?”

“Don’t mention it to Mom. And do not go hunting with Daddy and Uncle Peck until after we’re married.”

You tense up all over again, because her father’s mentioned to you how it might be a good time to get some shooting in.

You’ve gone soft. You’re worse than soft. A penis made of cotton. If a negative erection is possible that’s what you’ve got. You may never be hard ever again. She keeps thumbing your dick like there might yet be life in it. She nips at you with her lips tucked over her teeth, sucking as she pulls it out, making that popping sound.

She stretches your pecker like a chew toy. “You know I’m kidding, right?”

You push out a chuff that you hope passes for a chuckle. You try to focus on your fiancé, the way she’s swallowing you, and massaging the taut cords of your thighs as you spread to give her room.

You tense up again and lift your head to look her in the eye. “Which part were you kidding about?”

She doesn’t say, her mouth full. She just gives a shrug and a throaty chirp dismissing your question.

Then, just as you’re hoping to ease back into a world-class blow job to take your mind off your future father- and uncle-in-law maybe killing the guy who taught your fiancé such stellar tricks with that tongue of hers, she adds—

“Hey? You think when they got Doc out there, it was like that scene? From that movie? You know? Like in Deliverance?”

Fuck.