by Anthology
Yeah, speech wasn’t happening.
“Hold that. Don’t let go.”
With Florence’s hands at work between Shelby’s legs and her mouth at Shelby’s breast, she was dizzy with the sensation, punched higher by the lock of her fingers around the bar of the headboard. The muscles in her arms ached and started to shake, her fingers cramping up. The strain of obeying, of holding tight no matter how much she wanted to let get, to reach for that sharply clipped hair and ruffle her fingers through it, tugging on the longer forelock…the effort to hang on split her focus between pleasure and pain, between submitting and demanding, until sensation and confusion swamped her, pushing her under until she could barely breathe from it.
Florence, crouched over her, hands and mouth dedicated to pushing Shelby hurtling over the cliff, the ground rushing up to slam her into a climax that hurt as much as it healed.
The minutes that passed with them both breathing hard, lying next to each in the dark, felt like moments out of time. Separate from everything else that had passed between them before this.
Before Shelby could figure out what to say, how to break into this moment, Florence climbed over her and off the bed, crossing the room to what must have been and minifridge, because she returned with a bottle of cold, cold water that she offered to Shelby after taking a swig.
Liquid heaven never tasted so good as the ice water that filled Shelby’s mouth and spilled onto her chest as she swallowed.
Florence traced the trickle of water down Shelby’s breast until they both shuddered and breathed deep.
“Thanks,” Shelby managed to get out after another minute.
“The pleasure was all—well, half—mine,” Florence said, and Shelby could have sworn she grinned even though she could barely make it out.
“You’re being awfully friendly for someone who basically challenged me to a duel,” Shelby said as her racing heartbeat slowed, pulsing in her fingertips still.
“I figure I’m safer with you than with I am with anyone else on campus. You’re the only person I’m one hundred percent sure doesn’t want to kill me.” Florence stretched out on her side, back pressed to the wall as she made as much room for Shelby on the twin mattress as possible.
Shelby had always appreciated courtesy in a lover.
“Yet.” Shelby narrowed her eyes.
Florence twisted her full lips into something like a smile. “Yet.”
And somehow, after that laugh, it was easy enough to gossip about their shared adventure. Florence’s amazement at Shelby’s takedown of their assassins was still flattering enough to please. But it didn’t take long before they were recapturing the moment of their mutual challenge to this clearly over-the-top competition.
Which was when the conversation started to go down in flames.
Later, Shelby would try to remember who had first teased a little too hard. Had ragged just a bit too strongly on the other’s competitive streak. All she knew was that the post-sex languor grew charged with tension as they started rehashing trivia night disputes and arguments, until suddenly she found herself defensively explaining how she’d only started up a trivia team because Florence had shot her down the first time Shelby had managed to approach her.
Florence seemed to think that Shelby had been hitting on guys in front of her, so how could she possibly have been expected to figure out that Shelby was fair game for Florence?
Nothing Shelby said to the contrary made a dent in Florence’s certainty.
“I’m telling you, I don’t sleep with guys. What else do you want to hear? I was there to hit on you, damn it.”
“What about that guy in the bar? Hand jobs count as sex, girl.” Shelby could tell by the way Florence said it that girl was an insult she wasn’t supposed to notice.
She waved a languid hand in the air. Damn it, she wasn’t going to let herself get riled up. “A misunderstanding. His girlfriend had just dumped him. Very publicly.”
“So you just let him paw you, because you feel sorry for him,” Florence scoffed. “God, men.”
“Hey, I don’t sleep with them, but I still like them. You have friends your way, and I’ll do my way.” And Travis’s aching head had gotten no sympathy from Shelby when she’d pounded on his door the next morning, with the jacket he’d left behind, and the receipt for the bar tab he’d also managed to forget.
Friends made mistakes. The boys more frequently from the girls, yes, but Shelby’s streak of forgiveness ran deep.
“You know he was taking advantage of your sweet Southern girl nature.”
Shelby was pretty sure that made her sound like an idiot.
“He was drunk. You’ve never done anything stupid that you regret when you were drunk?” She rolled onto her side and scooted back until her butt nearly hung off the mattress. Pressing her hands together and slipping them under her cheek, she looked at Florence.
Florence flung an arm over her face, covering her eyes. Her mouth fell open as she snorted and Shelby stared at the shine on her small, white teeth. “No. Comment.”
And that was the last word Shelby let her get out before the sun rose over their naked bodies twined together on the bed.
If Florence hadn’t slept like the dead, the morning after would have been awkward, no doubt. But Shelby dressed and left Florence’s room before most of the dorm was awake, not ready to deal with the aftermath of how swiftly her antagonism had fallen before the concerted assault of Florence’s will.
In her own room, she crashed hard, sleeping through one seminar and waking to a message on her answering machine from Florence, slightly flirty, thanking her for the protection and promising to repay the favor if she could.
Shelby let her hired team keep an eye out for Florence over the next two days though, until the afternoon she found herself short-staffed and stuck providing personal guardian angel services again to the ever-oblivious-to-her-pursuers Florence.
She managed to eliminate one of her own targets while Florence was in class, hoping she’d find Florence’s name on the slip of paper the tall redheaded woman handed over with a laugh of dismay after being shot in the ass by a well-concealed Shelby outside the campus center.
“Good luck,” the woman said, rubbing her butt as she walked off, commiserating with her friends.
The name on the slip was not Florence Truong.
She was stuck defending her ultimate target until she could take out at least one more competitor in the game. It occurred to Shelby that finding out how many participants there were in total would have been a slick move. Maybe a bribe could still be offered to the organizers…
None of which didn’t explained how Shelby ended up pressed against Florence in a supply closet on the second floor of the campus center, hushing the other woman as Florence laughed, before settling down to some serious seduction.
“Maybe I’ll manage to take out my target and they’ll have your name on a slip of paper. Then it’ll be me coming after you.” Florence’s breath against her jaw was hot, damp. A drop of sweat trickled down the back of Shelby’s neck and all she could think about was how much she wanted Florence to lick it off.
“Oh, I hope so.” She leaned against Florence’s chest in the darkness. The smell of bleach and ammonia hung heavy in the air, which was unfortunate, because Shelby was pretty sure she was going to get wet the next time she had to mop the floor in her room. “It would be a pure pleasure to have you hunting me down.”
By the time they emerged from the closet, Florence’s pursuer had long since left the vicinity, and Shelby forgot to pay attention when Florence pushed her against the wall in the mail room and kissed her senseless before jogging off with a grin.
One night, they lost Florence’s assassin in the crowd at the Rat, the weekly dance party in the campus center. The previous year, campus security had pulled two women off the dance floor after they’d stripped down to their bras to cool down in the sweaty heat. The rent-a-cops’ last mistake had been to say to the women, one of whom was t
he editor of the campus LGBTQ magazine and the other her girlfriend, that they were worried about what the guys at the party might do at the sight of women dancing in their bras, and they didn’t want any trouble.
Shelby had almost felt bad for those two men in their polyester beige shirts and brown pants, heavy flashlights hanging from their sagging belts.
Telling a couple of activist lesbians what to wear because some random men might behave like assholes?
Eight months had passed since that incident. And for eight months, at every party on campus, formal events, casual gatherings, random groups of people congregating in a hallway, at least half of the women in attendance had stripped down to their bras. Some nights, there were more women in their bras than not.
The male students had generously offered to support the cause by taking their shirts off too, although the women rolled their eyes and said big fucking deal to each other behind the boys’ backs.
Parties in the campus center were usually a last-resort sort of option. If nothing else fun was going on and studying wrapped up early on a Wednesday, students who were bored might drift over to the Rat to boogie for a bit. But the DJ yanked the cord at midnight and the drinking was limited to expensive yet shitty beers from the snack bar, where they were demons about carding students, so the crowd was normally pretty thin.
Ever since the dance-in-your-bra protests had kicked off, however, parties at the Rat were uncommonly well-attended. Perfect for losing a would-be pursuer who’d dogged their heels from the library and across the green, Florence huffing and puffing because she still couldn’t run for shit.
And yes, maybe Shelby had the bra protest in mind when she’d opted for the campus center over the humid environs of the greenhouse or the cluster of dorms that squatted at the edge of the green.
Getting sweaty on a dark dance floor with a half-naked Florence Quek was quite the lure.
They plunged into the heaving, swaying mass of bodies right as the Dee-Lite’s “Groove Is In the Heart” morphed into the brass- and drum-heavy ska beat of Rancid’s “Time Bomb”. For once, Florence led the way, driving them deep into the heart of the dance floor, fingers of one hand tangled in Shelby’s as she unbuttoned her coat and flung it on the edge of the stage near the DJs table setup.
“Watch your jacket,” Shelby shouted over the music, because tailoring like that shouldn’t just be dropped on a tangled pile of cables and extension cords, but she swallowed her words and nearly her tongue as Florence shrugged out of her buttondown, too, threading it through her belt until it bounced on her hip as she shook her butt.
A lifted chin at Shelby’s long-sleeved T-shirt and knee-length sweater was all the challenge she needed.
Stripping down was one thing. Dancing—this jumping up and down to the brassy, punchy beat of the ska music, was another challenge entirely.
“Come on!” The flash of Florence’s grin was a wild thing, setting Shelby’s bones on fire and pulling her back into the crowd.
“Ah, fuck it.” Knowing she was going to regret it, Shelby shrugged out of her sweater and tossed it on top of Florence’s jacket, her T-shirt following shortly thereafter. Heads turned to follow Shelby as she wiggled her way onto the dance floor, following Florence’s strong shoulders and the black racerback of her sports bra away from the stage.
Even after most of two semesters’ bra-filled dance parties, breasts like hers got another glance from the dancers who surged against them as the crowd bounced and jumped and sang out their youth in a hot yell of fierceness.
Arms slick with sweat brushed against her, the long hair of a fellow dancer sticking to her shoulder until the boy whirled around his partner and danced away. With a grin, she threw herself into the dance, surrounded by students who might be assassins and might not and who gave a damn?
Her attempt at the bouncing on the balls of her feet ska dancing lasted exactly ten seconds.
“Oh my God.” Florence strangled the words on a laugh, doubling over and clutching her stomach as peals of laughter streamed from her mouth like bells ringing. She reached out a hand, fumbling as if to brace herself against a wall, a dancer, anything.
Shelby slammed back on her heels and quit moving.
“Oh, fuck you and all your small-titted friends,” Shelby said, crossing her arms over her breasts and frowning as Florence wiped at her eyes and stood up again, waving a hand. Wait, give me a sec. They moved toward the edge of the dance floor, and Shelby let her peripheral vision perk up, keeping an eye out for their earlier pursuer.
Florence walked into her body, pulling every bit of Shelby’s attention to the fore as she wrapped her arms around Shelby’s waist.
“You, and your breasts, are absolutely majestic,” Florence said in her ear, taking the lobe in her teeth and biting it. Shelby shivered. Florence’s hands dipped down the back of her pants, sliding on the sweat of Shelby’s lower back and slipping between her butt cheeks. “I would happily show you how much I appreciate them, right here on the fucking dance floor, if that’ll make you stop blushing.”
She slid her other hand up Shelby’s stomach, skipping the ticklish spots to push up under Shelby’s right breast, the weight heavy in her hands as she mimicked Shelby’s bra cup. The drag of her thumb back and forth, back and forth, over Shelby’s nipple made it pebble up.
Before they pulled everyone’s attention into focus, Shelby made the general’s smart decision to retreat from the field while she had the advantage.
Florence could do all the appreciation-showing she wanted back in Shelby’s dorm room.
But every morning after a night spent together, one of them slipped out of the other’s room before awkward daylight conversation was required. A week flew by in the high of the chase and the defensive maneuvers required to keep them safe as they both competed to be the one to get the other’s name as a target first.
Shelby had never doubted she would be the one to find Florence’s name on a tiny paper slip after purple-paint-splatting another student.
Which made it only fitting that Shelby was celebrating Florence’s second “kill’ from a perch in the theater balcony when Florence was the one to change the game.
Shelby watched from on high, a smile tugging at her lips, as Florence jogged down the aisle toward the stage. The hippie dude who had been Florence’s target was still dying dramatically in the front row, flinging himself over the back of a chair and clutching his purple-splotched chest while wailing in mock agony.
When Florence reached him, though, he flung his long hair back over his shoulder and manned up with a high five for the girl who’d taken him out.
Woman. She could hear Florence’s voice in her head. The woman who took him out.
Arguing with that voice was impossible to resist.
Don’t be so uptight. Casual vernacular, even of the sexist variety, is allowed in imaginary debates with women who’ve fucked your brains out.
She pictured the slow shake of the head Florence would give her before pushing her up against the nearest wall and invading her mouth.
Florence held out a hand to the dead boy, who dug in the pocket of his ripped jeans, then handed a slip of paper to her. Without bothering to step away, Florence unfolded the paper and stared at it.
Then turned her whole body to face the back of the auditorium and tipped her head up to stare at Shelby.
She lifted the paper in air and held it there, eyes locked on Shelby’s frozen form.
No one’s eyes were good enough to see that far, but Shelby didn’t need binoculars to know whose name was on that paper. They’d known there couldn’t be too many more people left in the game.
They watched each other and watched each other and the cavern of a room fell silent as the students who’d followed them into the building slipped under the spreading hush.
Shelby’s skin tingled, her heart thumping and throat swelling. Damn.
Looks like the partnership is dissolved, effective immediately.
Moving in slow m
otion, Shelby raised her palm and blew a kiss to Florence, who winked at her, then lifted her paint gun.
Dropping into a crouch to take advantage of the cover the balcony’s half-wall provided, she pivoted and sprinted for the exit.
Game on, girlfriend.
The words stung as she slammed against the emergency bar on the door, the alarm wailing as she pushed out of the building, heads of passing students spinning to find the source of the clanging bells. Feeling like a horse let off the rein—she didn’t have to worry about any Assassin other than the one she knew was racing through the auditorium to come after her ass—she sprinted for the Commons, the collection of shops and offices that had sprung up across the street from the small college over the years.
On campus, too many students might have noticed her. Gossip about her pairing with Florence for mutual self-defense had sparked a surge of gossip even among those who were normally oblivious to the pursuits going on around them. Most years, the game was pretty underground, students working hard to take out their targets through stealth and subterfuge, not outright warfare. Getting your friends in on the game wasn’t unheard of, but Shelby’s extensive use of that tactic had changed the game this year as more competitors imitated her in their bids to keep alive.
Shelby could hardly be blamed for having both more style and a flair for battle tactics than most, could she?
She spent the afternoon relaxing in the movie theater, watching Sharon Stone flirt in murderous fashion twice over, sitting through two showing of Basic Instinct and pondering the best way to stay alive long enough to take out her own target.
Only now that Florence was the one hunting her did it occur to Shelby that she’d let Florence learn entirely too much about her as she’d protected—slept with—her ultimate target.
The timing of Florence’s last assassination, however, worked entirely in Shelby’s favor. Thursday and Friday were light days on her class schedule, with only one of her seminars being absolutely, positively unmissable.
Her history of US/Soviet relations class with Lawson was an honors seminar with only five students in attendance. Although Professor Lawson might not hold it against Shelby if she missed class this one time, Shelby wouldn’t dare be so crass.