by Leah Raeder
Her back arched, her body molding against mine. My palms scaled her ribs till she pressed them still.
“You’re drunk, Vada.”
“Don’t think I mean it?”
“We came here to meet your Internet boyfriend.”
Instantly my mouth went sour. I released her, walked to the other end of the terrace.
“I’m glad he didn’t show,” I said.
My own words startled me. I repeated them.
“I am glad. Fuck him.” I wrapped my fists around the railing as tight as I could. The left was strong, the right watery, ghostly. I’d kill to crack my knuckles. My bad hand always felt like this, one good crack away from being fixed. “We never should’ve come here. This whole time, I’ve been chasing a mirage. A phantom. Because I’m—” Can I actually say this to her? Right now I think I can. “I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“You. This. Us.”
She came up beside me, guarded. “You’ve said that before. What do you really mean?”
Salt air in my throat. Blue ocean beyond, licked by the gold flames of harbor lights.
“I mean it terrifies me that the love of my life is a fucking girl.” I didn’t look at her. I spoke to the dusk sky. “You want honesty, right? Well, here you go. I have stupid irrational hang-ups about you. About how people look at us. About how they’ll see me as this, a girl with another girl, without caring who I really am. That there’s more to me. They’ll see a label, not a person.”
“There’s more to me, too. Sometimes you don’t even see it. You see the labels you’ve put on me, instead of what’s really here.”
“You’re right. I—” God, time to cop to how shitty I am. “Ellis, I liked Blue because he’s like you, but a guy, okay? Because that’s how fucking deep it goes for me. I wanted someone easy. Someone who wouldn’t make me question so much about myself, about what’s really inside me. In my head you’ve always been the exception to the rule.”
“What rule?”
“That I’ll turn out normal someday.” I gripped the railing with all my might. “I’m sorry if that makes me a shitty person. It scares me, that I might never love anyone else like this. Makes me wonder if I’ve been lying to myself about who I really am.”
“Maybe I’m lying to myself, too.”
I glanced at her. “How?”
“Sometimes it feels like something inside me is waiting to explode.”
Ryan’s words.
“Who am I, Vada? Who do you see?”
“Ellis Carraway. My best friend.”
“Just your friend.”
“There’s no word for what you mean to me.”
“Do I embarrass you?”
“Are you nuts? You’re the smartest person I know. I brag about you all the time. And you’re cute as hell. So cute I kissed you in the Old Port, on the street. And in that bar in front of everyone.”
“That was kind of balls-out.”
I grinned. “Reckless Vada.”
“No. Brave.”
We eyed each other in the deepening twilight. Lights popped on along the wharf, little yellow kernels.
“I don’t want to just be friends anymore,” I said. “The only problem with our relationship was me. My stupid hang-ups. My fear.”
“I won’t be your second choice.”
I took her hands, brought her fingers to my mouth. Warmed them with my breath. “You’re everything I want. If Blue showed up right now, I’d tell him to fuck off.”
“Even if he was really hot?”
I answered earnestly, my throat tight. “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”
“Is this because we’re drunk, or is it real?”
“I think both. Look.”
I let go of her, gave her space to breathe. The navy satin of the harbor fanned below. Skyscrapers towered over it, a palisade of steel.
“Not exactly van Gogh, right? Too clinical. But see that?” I pointed. “The stars are still there. They fell out of the sky and drowned. They’re underwater now, sparkling beneath the surface. Ruby, sapphire, amethyst, topaz. More colors than ever before.”
“How do you see things like this? These drowned stars.”
You, I thought. I see them because of you.
“Ellis, you totally have a type. I’m an artist, Blythe’s a poet. Next you’ll fall for an interpretive dancer.”
“There won’t be a next.”
Knife, twist. “I lied about lying, about the experiment. In the Old Port. Do you want to know what it really was?” I didn’t wait for her answer. “I wanted to see how it’d feel, being your girlfriend.”
I sensed the hitch in her breath. “How did it feel?”
“Exactly the same as being your friend. But a lot nicer, because there was kissing.”
Ellis hung her head, not hiding her smile very well. “Can I say something?”
“Can I kiss you after you say it?”
“Yes. Please. But listen.” She made herself meet my eyes. I saw nervousness there, but no fear. “You said it scares you, that you might not love anyone else this way. But it doesn’t scare me. It makes me happy, Vada. That I have someone I can love like this.”
Right at that moment my silly drunk heart was an overfull paint can when a brush jams inside, color slopping over the rim, running everywhere.
I took her glasses off. Harbor lights danced over our skin. “You’re getting kissed now.”
But she beat me to it.
We both had alcohol on our lips, a whiff of burnt sugar and cream. My back curved against the railing. Ellis leaned in and kissed me gently, daintily, precise little brushes across my mouth. Her hands framed my face, angled it so she could kiss me exactly where she wanted. The way I’d position paper when I drew. I gave myself up to her. Let her cradle the back of my head, her lips softly shading mine in.
“I want you so much,” I murmured into her mouth.
I pulled her across the terrace into the dark suite. She pushed me against the glass doors. More boy than girl now, this slender, pretty boy, smoky-eyed and tousle-haired, lifting my face to kiss me again and again. Her hands were all over me, pulling my hips to hers.
“Fuck me,” I said.
I tugged the top button of her shirt.
“Do you really want this?”
“Do you want to feel how wet I am?” I dragged her hands lower, but she stopped me.
“Look at me. Do you want me, or a boy?”
I circled her waist, held her tight to my body. “You. Just like this. You’re kind of a boy, aren’t you?”
Her heart crashed against mine. “Do you want me to be?”
“Yes.” I grabbed her ass, brought her knee between my legs. “Fuck me like a boy, Ellis.”
She put her mouth to my ear. “Like Blue?”
“Like you.”
She took my blouse off in a smooth pull, unclasped my bra. Held my wrists to the glass in one hand while the other slipped beneath the bra cups. Teased my nipples hard. Then took one between her lips, sucking till I could not feel where my spine ended, only this cord of electricity crackling from my skull to the tips of me, firing out wild trails of sparks. My hands fell free, raked into her hair and knotted. Held her to my breast as she circled the areola with her tongue till I couldn’t take it anymore and pulled her up to face me.
“Let me see you,” I said.
She let me unbutton her shirt now, slowly. The weak useless hand that fumbled and the strong awkward one. When I struggled, she guided my fingers. I used to do this so suavely. I used to be so confident. Invincible.
Ellis waited, patient.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be.”
Her shirt came off, and the tight tee beneath. I dropped my bra. Our bodies met again, skin on skin. Her shoulder against my cheek, moon pale, freckles spilling down her arm like a fall of sand. I counted the ridges of her spine with my fingers and pulled her closer, crushed my breasts to hers, our lungs fi
ghting to occupy the same space. I wanted her inside me. I wanted her deep, in the marrow, the bitter redness.
We tumbled onto the bed and lay side by side, kissing, until she rolled astride me and held me down. She kissed me everywhere, her hands on every exposure of skin, tracing my tats with her fingertips, nails, tongue, to the point where I could barely register any individual touch but felt her desire wash over me in a sweeping, impressionistic wave, the blurry underpainting of lust. We undid each other’s jeans, slid them off. Nothing left between us. I pulled her face to mine and moaned, unabashedly throaty, carnal. Ellis moved against me, steady and hard, rolling her hips, and I wrapped myself around her and gripped that tight little ass and made her grind on me, spread her wetness all over my leg, till she pushed my legs apart. One hand between them, one on my throat. She kissed me when she touched me, traced my clit with a finger and ran her tongue inside my upper lip, and all the resistance in me dissolved. I’d never felt like such a girl as when she touched me. So soft and open, my body pliant, transparent like tulle, responding to the barest brush of her fingers. I’d slept with a lot of boys, but none made me feel this feminine. None knew how to touch me like this. Because Ellis knew exactly what this felt like. How the lightest glide against my tongue, my nipples, my clit felt like a spark racing down a fuse. How suggestion could be more powerful than direct stimulation. But I wanted it direct now.
She felt what I needed. We’d been together so long, we just sensed things.
The finger tracing me slid inside, then another, and I gritted my teeth because touching an ache feels so fucking good you almost don’t want the pain to stop. I rocked against her, unable to hold back.
“Fuck,” I said. “I’m close.”
Ellis looked down at me. Tucked my hair behind my ear. Touched my mouth, fingers running down to my throat.
And then grasped it, tight.
Some noise rose from my diaphragm, beastly and crude. Animal pleasure.
Choking yourself is one thing. You control it, fine-tune it, but the pleasure is in the control. Being choked by someone else is exhilarating precisely because the control is gone.
“Tighter,” I whispered.
Shadows seeped inward, vignetting my vision. The darkness seemed to glitter blackly.
“Baby, fuck me,” I said, and she did. Two fingers inside me. One hand on my throat.
The first time I’d done it, it was instinctual. I’d been fingering her on the sofa, kissing her neck, feeling the artery pulse against my lips like a red butterfly trapped beneath the surface, and as she got close something dark reared up in me, bitter and unkind. I knew when she came and clutched me helplessly that I’d melt, I’d fall in love with her a little more, and I resented it, the whole thing, this beautiful friendship that went too far and couldn’t go back, that would crash and burn and destroy the life I’d built around her. I wanted this love to hurt her, just a bit, the way it hurt me. I wanted to hurt her. My hand slid around her neck. Her eyes opened wide. We were fully, mercilessly in that moment together. Afterward we didn’t talk about it, but it became part of us. It happened when we were upset, when we couldn’t solve a problem any other way. We both did it. Ellis was reluctant at first, but the more I failed to be the out-and-proud girlfriend of her dreams, the more okay she seemed with this fucked-up manifestation of our tension. And then it started happening so often that sometimes I wasn’t sure if we actually wanted to fuck or just to hurt each other.
Something hardened inside me. I rode her fingers, groaning when she pulled out and ran her palm against my pussy, wanting so badly for the pressure to burst. When she slid in again I raised my whole body to hers, her nipples grazing mine, her skin slick. Our lips brushed, her hair feathering my face. Then she pulled out and released my throat at the same time.
“God, fuck,” I said. Head rush, sick and giddy. “Make me come. Stop fucking torturing—”
She stuck her wet fingers in my mouth.
I gasped, which made it easier for her to slide deeper. After the initial shock I closed my lips around them. It’d been so long since I’d tasted myself. Warm and clear, a slight tart sweetness. So fucking feminine.
“How does it taste?” she whispered. “You always tasted so good.”
I pried her knees open with my own. Brought my hand to the heat between her legs. Ran a fingertip inside as I swirled my tongue around her fingers. She groaned.
“You’re so pretty with me in your mouth.” She slid in farther. “Do it, baby. Suck me off.”
I stared up at her. Light struck part of her face, the chiseled jaw, the ridge in her throat.
And for a wild moment, I thought of Blue.
Not in her place. Not the way she feared. But as her. This androgynous girl with her hand in my mouth, telling me to blow her.
Holy fuck.
I licked her fingers and pulled them out, kissed the tips, took them in again, my eyes on hers. The other hand stroked her clit. Ellis cupped the back of my head like a boy would. We tangled together, legs linked, my wetness spreading as I rode her thigh. Every time I sucked her in and looked up plaintively, she rocked into my hand, hard. It made my head spin. This felt like fucking a guy and a girl at the same time. This felt crazy. All around us was a watery haze, shadows wavering, wisps of light floating like jellyfish in the thick, fluid air, and I had the sudden sense that I was actually under the waterline, my mouth full of ocean. The struggle for release was like fighting a drowning. I could feel it so close, dry air and clarity just overhead. Her body wound with mine, her nipples stiff against my breasts, her wet soft skin unbearable against my pussy. I intensified as I would with a boy, showing him how badly I wanted his cock. Deep-throating him. Her. Ellis made a fist in my hair. Force me, I thought, force me, fuck my mouth, and she did, her fingers thrusting to the back of my tongue, but I was a good girl with a well-trained gag reflex and I took it like a pro. Ellis heaved against me, saying, “God, God,” and I kept giving it to her steady and rode her leg and came, pure air breaking over me, my head above the surface. She took her hand from my mouth. I inhaled, oxygen drugging my blood. That first crystalline breath. Ecstasy.
We curled against each other, panting. I stared at the ceiling, the play of reflected light. Lifted an arm and slid my hand up the wall to feel it. Air, just air.
Ellis looked at me through mussed hair, mouth swollen, squinting. So lovely. I touched her face, slid a hand through her hair and ruffled it.
“What do you see?” she said.
“You.” I twirled a lock around my finger. “My prince.”
Her eyes half-shut, as if looking at something bright. “I wish I could draw. I wish I could show you how you look to me. You’re so beautiful, Vada.”
My heartbeat echoed in my fingertips.
We kissed for a while, soft and slow, pausing to touch each other, to run skin against skin, lace fingers, look at ourselves entwined. I couldn’t tell the taste or feel of my own body from hers. It was all one thing, just us.
When she shivered I pulled the quilt up and Ellis nestled in my arms. I love you, I thought, watching an imaginary zodiac spin over the walls. I love you more than anything. I’m sorry I ever made you doubt that. Because this feels right. It’s the first thing that’s felt completely right since the night our lives tore apart.
This feels like breathing again.
* * *
I woke in a stillness flocked with velvet shadows in tones of cornflower and mauve. Ignored my phone and the chill and leaned against the headboard, the sheet twined around my chest, watching Ellis.
Light sleeper. She stirred soon after, her shoulders peeking from the sheets. When she blinked I ran a finger across her collarbone, eliciting a shiver.
“Hi,” I said.
Ellis didn’t answer, but she had that oh my god this actually happened look.
I laughed. “Yo sé eh.”
She pulled the sheet over her head.
At first she was shy, hiding until I wrestled her down and k
issed her. We were a total mess, half-hungover, feral from sex, and I didn’t care. I kissed the hell out of her till she stopped being self-conscious, till she took me in her arms and kissed me back, breathless. A red sun rose and warmed the room. I pulled her atop me, gazing up at her.
“What are you thinking?” she said.
“That I could look at your face forever.”
Her breath caught, and so did mine. I hadn’t really thought about the words. I just said what I felt.
Ellis smiled, playing it off. “You like me, dork.”
“Nope. Way too nerdy.”
“Admit it.”
“Dream on.”
“You want to look at me forever.”
“Only because it’d take that long to count your stupid freckles.”
“You can’t freckle-shame me. I know you think they’re cute.”
I shut her up with a kiss. Sweet at first, laughing against each other’s mouths, but soon it turned intense and led to lip-biting, hair-pulling. “Okay,” I said, pushing a knee between her legs, “you’re not cute. You’re hot as fuck.”
It was a dream. All of it. Fucking each other as the sun poured molten gold against our backs. Perching on the sink and chatting with her as she showered. Interrupting her every five minutes with a kiss, a goofy smile, a piece of my heart. Finally dragging ourselves out of the room and ambling through the fog-haunted city, our breath hanging in veils of chiffon, pretending to peer in shop windows when I was really just watching her reflection. Hands linked, images tumbling through my head like kaleidoscope bits. If someone came up right then and shot me through the heart I was pretty sure a rainbow would splatter on the bricks. I took her to a comics shop and told her to buy as much as we could carry, and her eyes lit up. She kissed me, which made two teenage boys stare and break into grins. Then she led me down the aisles as her pack mule, shoving graphic novels into my arms. I didn’t care. I was doped up on this, smiling dazedly at everything.
Oh my god. This was actually happening.