This is a short fiction piece. Thanks for reading!
She couldn’t believe they could take her whole hand. They asked for more, and then more, so she gave it — she tucked her thumb and eased in past her knuckles until they gasped and nodded. Their legs were butterflied apart, nearly flat to the bed. Her buzz had worn off and instead she was attuned to their body, felt the openness they felt. It’s not like this with Soph, she thought, her girlfriend briefly on her mind.
“I think your hands are just too big, babe,” Soph had said during another attempt months before. Others had told her the same in the past. She slowly slid her three bundled fingers out and sat back on her heels, wiping off the lube on her bare hip. She was aware that stopping altogether then conveyed a sense of dismay, and worried Soph might’ve thought the disappointment was about her. A wave of guilt came over her, and she hoped it wasn’t visible on her face in the low light of their bedroom. It’s just that it was another first she wanted but didn’t know then if she would get to have.
She was sometimes afraid that if she became close enough with someone, they would be able to hear her thoughts.
Shut up about your fucking mom, listening to her best friend going on, again, about the boundaries she needs to set with her neurotic mother, and why she feels like she still can’t.
It’s over, standing quietly in the kitchen a few steps behind her girlfriend, who didn’t hear her come in over the sound of the range fan and sizzling stir fry. As if Soph wasn’t cooking for the two of them, like most nights; as if everyone didn’t say they were so good together.
She knew it was an irrational worry, but still.
I liked your hair the way it was, when Soph came home with a surprise undercut one day.
“Wow, it’s hot,” she told her. “Let me feel,” reaching her hand out. What else could she say? Not You look too butch now; not Why?
There wasn’t even a clear thought about fucking her coworker. Not a Do it or a Don’t. She just felt their eyes on her in their first week at the office and turned to hold their gaze; ordered PBRs with them at the crowded bar nearby after work on Friday; went with them back to their place — a three-bedroom apartment somehow — thinking only What were they doing before to afford this, and What a great ass, following them inside.
Later that night, turning her key in the sticky lock of her door: Should I shower? Kicking off her scuffed loafers: How did I forget my socks there? Walking over to the couch, where Soph didn’t look up from her laptop: Do I smell like beer? Hearing the Stardew Valley music and kissing her girlfriend’s forehead: Do I smell like pussy?
Thinking back, as Soph’s mouth moves on her in a familiar rhythm, to a few hours ago: their kissing, firm in a way she liked; their breath, sour in a way she didn’t. Her socks were almost the same reddish-brown shade of their duvet. Replaying the scene of her curled hand rocking forward and back, slick and sore. Remembering the look on their face. Soph’s tongue suddenly knocks the breath out of her that she didn’t know she was holding.
I just came thinking about you — she wonders if she should text them that. She thinks about laying in their bed again, saying their name again, those two syllables that had no association a week ago. The way it spilled out of her.
“What?” Soph asks in a high pitch.
Her heart pounds. Did I–
She looks up from the pillow. Wide eyes meet wide eyes.
More please!