Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Carol had been staring at the same paragraph for forty minutes.

She knew this because she had sat down at ten thirty and the paragraph had not changed and neither had anything else. It was the same seventeen words it had been for three years, the opening of something she had never managed to open, sitting there on the page waiting for her to be ready, which she had not been.

She put the page face down.

The apartment was quiet around her. It was always quiet now. She had lived here for seven years and in the first four the quiet had been relative. Helen's music from the other room, Helen's voice on the phone, Helen's habit of narrating whatever she found interesting directly to Carol without checking whether Carol was working. Now the quiet was absolute and Carol had learned to work inside it and sleep inside it and move through her days without ever quite filling it.

She stood and stretched, pulling her arms back, feeling the resistance across her shoulders. The gym before dawn, the same as every day, because her body needed somewhere to put things and that was where they went. She looked at her forearms braced against the doorframe and felt nothing about them except that they were reliable, which was what she asked of herself these days.

She went to the kitchen to make coffee.

She was standing at the counter when the first drop hit the back of her hand.

She looked up at the ceiling, then at her hand, then up again. The stain was small, dark at the center, already spreading. A second drop fell, then a third. Carol got a pot from the cabinet and set it on the counter and listened to the hollow sound of it for a moment. Then she got her laptop and sat at the kitchen table and looked for a plumber.

Zawadzka Plumbing. Fourth result. Good reviews, fast response times. Someone had written came within the hour on a Sunday, fixed the problem, fair price. She called the number.

A woman answered. Young, direct, no unnecessary words. Carol appreciated.

She described the problem.

"I can be there around 4 p.m.," the woman said.

"Fine," Carol said. "Thank you."

She hung up and went back to the desk. Twelve student essays, her Tuesday workshop at the atelier. She picked up the red pen and marked for two hours without stopping. She did not write anything of her own and did not look at the face-down manuscript.

-

The knock came at 3:58 p.m. 

Carol put down the red pen, went to the door and opened it. Her first thought was everything but appropriate, and she shut it down in under a second.

The woman on the other side was somewhere in her late twenties. Her dark hair was pulled back tight, the kind of job you do without a mirror, not a strand out of place because it had been put up for function and not for looking at. Blue work overalls with the top half unclipped, hanging loose off her hips over a white t-shirt. Strong jaw. She looked like she worked for a living. You could see it in her shoulders and her hands, and in the way she stood there easy in the doorway, like she'd be just as comfortable whether Carol opened it or not.

Her eyes were brown, but not evenly. The left one had a darker ring round the edge that the right one didn't, so you ended up looking twice without meaning to. Carol looked twice. She had always had a weakness for a face that asked to be looked at like that, and she caught herself doing it before she'd decided to.

"Zawadzka Plumbing?" Carol said.

"That's me. My name's Zosia."

She shifted the bag on her shoulder. She was looking at Carol the way you'd expect, polite, here to work, except there was something under it too, right from the start, and she wasn't bothering to hide it. "You called about the ceiling."

"Come in," Carol said.

She crossed the hallway without glancing at the bookshelves. Carol noted it. She went straight to the kitchen and crouched over her bag and assessed the stain with two fingers pressed to the plaster, focused. Carol stood in the doorway and watched her and then made herself look at something else.

She got the building manager's number up on her phone and read it out. The woman sorted the access upstairs in under two minutes.

"I'll start up there," she said, standing. "Two hours maybe. You don't have to stay."

"It's my apartment," Carol said.

The woman looked at her. One corner of her mouth moved, barely. "It is," she said, and went to the stairs.
Carol went back to the desk.

-

The first time Zosia came back downstairs was twenty minutes later.

Carol heard the footsteps and kept her eyes on the essay. They came down the hall and paused beside the desk and Carol did not look up.

"Sorry," Zosia said. "Forgot something in the van."

Carol turned a page. "Door's on the latch."

"Thanks."

She did not move. Carol could feel her standing there, she wasn’t used of being looked at. She kept her eyes on her desk.

"What are you marking," Zosia said.

"Student work."

"What subject."

"Writing."

A pause. "You teach writing."

"Two days a week."

"And the face-down thing."

Carol looked up. Zosia was looking at the manuscript underneath the essay stack. Not nosily. Something more like recognition.

"Is face down," Carol said.

Something in Zosia's face shifted. She said, "Right," and went to the front door.

Carol listened to her footsteps go down to the van and come back up and then up the second flight.

-

The second time Zosia came downstairs she needed to check the water pressure at the kitchen tap.

Carol was at her desk. She heard her come through and kept working. Zosia ran the tap, checked something, wrote in her phone. Then she was in the hallway doorway.

Carol had rolled her sleeves up at some point without thinking, the linen pushed to the elbow. Zosia's eyes went there and then to Carol's face, and she did not pretend either movement had not happened.

"You work out," she said.

"Occasionally."

"More than occasionally." She leaned against the doorframe, looking at Carol. "It shows."

Carol, visibly blushing. "Was there something else you needed."

"No. I just wanted to say it."

Carol looked at her for a moment, then picked up her red pen. "Get back to work."

Zosia smiled and went back upstairs.

Carol sat at the desk with the pen in her hand and was very aware of a warmth low in her stomach that she had not asked for and did not intend to do anything about. She marked two more essays. The warmth stayed where it was.

-

The third time Zosia came downstairs she was soaked.

Carol was in the kitchen. She heard the footsteps on the stairs and turned. Zosia was in the doorway and the white t-shirt was completely transparent. Not damp. Entirely. Irreversibly wet. She was wearing nothing underneath it, and Carol's eyes moved before she could do anything about it.

One full sweep, immediate, down and then back up to Zosia's face. Zosia watched her do it with a knowing look and not remotely embarrassed.

Carol felt it land low in her body, a heat that had nothing to do with the weather. She had not expected to feel anything like that on a Monday afternoon in her own kitchen. She kept her face entirely still.

"There's a section I loosened," Zosia said. "It came down."

"I see that."

"If you have a towel."

Carol turned to the cabinet above the washing machine and reached up for one, and behind her Zosia went quiet. She got the towel and turned around and held it out.

Zosia crossed the kitchen and took it. Their fingers overlapped, warm, and she did not move back. She looked at Carol the way she had been looking at her all afternoon, wanting. Carol looked back and said nothing. 

Then Zosia brought the towel to her face and dried off.

"Bathroom?" she said.

"Second door on the left," Carol said.

Zosia went down the hall.

Carol stood at the counter with her hands flat on the surface and breathed out once, slowly. She was wet. How embarrassing, she thought. She turned on the tap, filled a glass and drank it. She stood there trying not to think about Zosia in her bathroom.

And she failed. 

-

Zosia finished the job at six.

She came back downstairs with her bag, and Carol stood up from the desk and got the payment she had already worked out. She had looked up the rate and added extra because the job had been fast and clean and she did not like ambiguity in what she owed people.

Zosia took it and looked at the figure.

"I'll send a proper invoice."

"That's the figure. You were fast and you did it right."

Zosia looked at the amount and then at Carol, with that same wanting look that had been there all afternoon and had not diminished.

"Thank you," Zosia said.

They walked to the front door. Carol opened it. Zosia picked up her bag, stepped into the doorway and turned. They were close, closer than leaving required, and Carol felt the heat that had been sitting in her body all day. 

Zosia looked at her mouth.

The moment sat between them. Carol kept her face still and Zosia looked at her for one more second. Then she took out her phone and held it out.

"My number," she said. "Not the business line."

Carol took the phone, saved the number, and then held her own phone out. Zosia took it and typed and handed it back without a word. She looked at the screen and put the phone in her pocket.

"Thank you," she said, and went down the stairs.

Carol stood in the open doorway and listened to the building's front door open and close.

She went to the kitchen window.

She could see the white van pulling away from the kerb below. She watched it go and told herself something about professionalism and the kind of foolishness she had spent three years avoiding and watched the van turn the corner and disappear.

-

A few minutes later the sky went green-black.
Carol looked up from the essay she had been not-reading. The light through the window had changed. She got up and went to look and thought, not good.

The rain started before she finished the thought. Not gradually. All at once, the kind that turned streets into rivers in 3 minutes, sheets of it against the glass, she could already see the water rising at the kerb. She thought about the van on the road, about Zosia, and then told herself she was not thinking about Zosia.

She went back to the desk and read four sentences of an essay about narrative structure, then went back to the window.

The street below was flooding. A bin knocked over by the wind, the tree on the corner bending at a serious angle. This was not going to stop for a while.

She stood at the window. Ten minutes passed.

A knock at her door.

Carol went and opened it, Zosia was on the other side, completely drenched, hair plastered to her face, jacket soaked through, and not embarrassed about any of it. She looked at Carol and said, "Tree down. Road's blocked. I couldn't get through."

Not asking to stay. Stating a fact.

Carol stepped back. "Come in."

She made her stand in the hallway while she got towels, then came back and handed them over. Zosia dried her face and her hair. Her clothes were soaked through entirely.

"You can't stay in those," Carol said.

"I'm fine."

"You'll be cold." Carol was already going down the hall. She came back with a grey t-shirt and sweatpants with a drawstring. "Bathroom's the second door."

Zosia took them and went.

Carol went to the kitchen and put water on.

She heard the bathroom door open four minutes later, and then Zosia was in the kitchen doorway and Carol looked at her. Not quickly enough.

The t-shirt hung off her shoulders, too wide, sliding to one side. The sweatpants sat low on her hips with the drawstring pulled tight. Carol's clothes on a different body. Carol turned back to the stove.

"You're looking," Zosia said.

"I'm cooking."

"You were looking before that."

Carol stirred the pasta. "Sit down."

"Your arms are bigger than mine." Carol could feel her eyes on her. "I'm swimming in this."

"I noticed."

"Did you." 

Carol said nothing for a moment. "The pasta will be ready in ten minutes."

Zosia laughed. A low, brief and genuine laugh. She pulled out a chair and sat down. Carol kept her back to her and stirred and felt the back of her neck warm.

- 

She put a bowl in front of Zosia without asking and sat across from her and they ate.

For a few minutes neither of them said anything. 

Then Carol said, "How long have you been doing this."

Zosia looked up. "Plumbing?"

"Yes."

"Five years properly. I did my apprenticeship at twenty-one." She ate. "Before that I was studying architecture."

Carol looked at her. "You left."

"Two years in. Yes."

"Why."

Zosia turned her fork in her bowl. "Because I wanted to make things, not design them. In architecture school you spend years thinking about how something could exist. I wanted to put my hands in it. The problem, the fix, the moment when water runs clean through something you just repaired." She paused. "I know how that sounds."

"It sounds like knowing what you want," Carol said.

Zosia looked at her. "Yes. Exactly."

"Was it difficult. Leaving."

"My mother cried. Not because she was disappointed, because she'd been proud and didn't know how to redirect it."She paused. "My father made a joke about me at least being able to fix his pipes. He's been calling me about his pipes ever since."

"And you go."

"Every time." She ate. "He doesn't actually need me. The pipes are fine. He just likes that I come."

Carol looked at her bowl. "You're from here originally."

"Born here. Parents from Krakow. My father's a carpenter, my mother worked in school administration." She paused. "She still does. My father retired last year and she says he's driving her insane and that retiring was a mistake and she loves him very much."

Carol smiled, briefly, before she could stop it. Zosia saw it but said nothing about it.

"Siblings," Carol said.

"A brother. Younger. Studying medicine. He's going to be very good at it. He has the patience for it." A pause. "I don't."

"What don't you have patience for."

Zosia looked at her. "Things that take too long to show results." She held Carol's gaze. "I'm working on it."

Carol held it for a moment and then looked at her bowl.

"The face-down thing on your desk," Zosia said. "Fiction, you said."

"Yeah. Three books. A series. A long time ago."

"Why face down?"

Carol turned her glass in her hands. "Because looking at it asks something I don't currently have."

Zosia was quiet. She did not say you should write again or what happened or any of the things people said. She said, "Okay," and picked up her fork.

-

By 10 p.m. they were in the living room.

Not by decision. By the natural momentum of a conversation that kept going past every reasonable stopping point. Zosia had her legs stretched out and Carol was at the other end of the sofa. The storm had dropped to something quieter while neither of them had been paying attention.

Carol had stopped tracking the content of what they were saying some time ago. She was tracking other things. The way Zosia used her hands when she explained something. The way she listened with her whole face. The way she looked at Carol's mouth sometimes, not constantly, just occasionally, and did not look away when Carol caught her.

The heat that had been in Carol's body since the kitchen doorway that afternoon had not gone anywhere.

"You've gone quiet," Zosia said.

"I'm often quiet."

"Not like this." Zosia looked at her directly, eyes dark.

"You're thinking about me."

Carol looked at her. "I've been thinking about you since you came downstairs with your soaked t-shirt clinging to your skin."

Zosia’s smile widened, clearly pleased.

"You’re blushing, Carol"

"I’m not," Carol muttered, even as the warmth spread across her face.

"You are," Zosia said.

She lifted a hand and brushed a strand of hair behind Carol’s ear, letting her fingers linger against her jaw. "It’s cute. Makes me wonder what else I can make you do."

Carol gasped. Before she could find a reply, Zosia leaned in and kissed her.

The kiss started slow but quickly turned hungry. Zosia's hand slid into Carol's hair as Carol opened for her, tongues sliding wet and urgent. Carol pulled her closer, feeling the firm press of Zosia's body against hers on the couch. When they broke apart, Carol was already breathing harder.

She rested her forehead against Zosia's for a moment, then asked the question that had been burning in her throat. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-six."

Twenty-six. The number landed between them like a live wire. Carol let it sit there. Zosia still carried that raw and reckless vitality Carol had lost somewhere in the last decade. Being this close to it felt dangerous. Like standing too near a fire after years of cold.

"I'm thirty-nine," Carol said quietly.

"I know." Zosia's voice stayed steady, almost amused. "You told me at dinner. It doesn't change anything.

Carol let out a shor breath. "Thirteen years, Zosia.

"I know." Zosia's thumb brushed slowly along Carol's jaw.

Carol swallowed. "I don't do this."

"Do what." Zosia asked, leaning in again. "Let someone younger fuck you senseless? Or let yourself want it this badly?"

She didn't answer. Zosia kissed her again, deeper this time, pushing her back into the couch cushions and settling between her thighs. Carol arched up into her without thinking.

Zosia broke the kiss just enough to bite along Carol’s jaw, then lower to her neck sucking hard enough to leave a mark. Carol's breath hitched, her hands sliding under Zosia's shirt to feel warm skin and the lean muscle underneath.

"Bedroom," Carol rasped.

Zosia pulled back, lips swollen and eyes gleaming. She took Carol's hand and tugged her up.

-

Halfway down the hall Carol shoved her against the wall, mouth latching onto Zosia's throat, sucking and licking. Zosia groaned, head falling back, fingers digging hard into Carol's hips. Then she flipped them, pinning Carol to the wall with her forearm beside her head.

"Stop it," Zosia said against her ear. "You've been in your head all day. Not anymore."

She kissed Carol again while her hand slipped under Carol's shirt and spread hot across her stomach.

Carol's breath hitched sharply. "Second door," she managed.

-

In the bedroom Zosia took off her clothes, letting the borrowed t-shirt and sweatpants drop to the floor and stood there completely naked for a moment, letting Carol look. Then she climbed onto the bed and pressed Carol down beneath her, taking control instantly. Carol tried to roll them but Zosia caught both wrists in one hand and pinned them above her head with ease.

"No," Zosia said calmly.

Carol's pulse hammered under Zosia's thumb. "Let go of—"

"Let me have you." Zosia murmured, "That's all you have to do."

She stripped Carol's shirt and bra away, then took the time to look down at her body. Her palm slid slowly down Carol's toned abdomen, tracing every hard line of muscle.

"Jesus Christ," Zosia whispered. She lowered her head and dragged her open mouth across Carol's stomach, tongue tracing every ridge. Carol's fingers twisted tight into Zosia's hair as she worked lower.

When Zosia dragged Carol's boxers down and put her mouth on her, Carol's back bowed violently off the bed. Zosia pinned her hips down and devoured her, slow filthy licks at first. Then precise and relentless as two long fingers pushed deep inside and curled. 

"Don't stop," Carol gasped.

Zosia pulled back just enough to speak, "Don't stop what?"

"Your mouth, please. I need your mouth on my clit."

Zosia's eyes flashed. She gave her exactly what she begged for. Carol grew louder, hips grinding against Zosia's face as the orgasm built fast and brutal.

"Fuck. I'm gonna come, don't stop, please don't stop—"

Zosia slowed deliberately.

Carol nearly sobbed. "Don't you dare."

"Look at you," Zosia said, voice warm and cruelly amused. "Already so close and I've barely started."

"Please," Carol begged. "Please let me come. I need it, Zosia, please—"

"Comz for me, good boy." Zosia's mouth returned and Carol came hard with her back arching, thighs locked around Zosia's head as she cried out through long shuddering waves. Zosia worked her through every pulse until Carol was twitching and gasping.

Stop, stop, too much—"

Zosia pressed one slow kiss to the inside of her thigh and crawled up beside her. Carol lay wrecked, chest heaving. After a long moment Zosia spoke, quiet and certain.

"You're going to come again."

"I'm not sure I can," Carol whispered.

"You will. Whether you think you can or not."

"Zosia."

"Tell me you don't want my hands on you. Look me in the eye and say it."

Carol looked at her. She couldn't lie.

"Yes," she breathed. "Okay. Yes."

-

The second time was rougher. Deeper. Meaner. Zosia flipped Carol onto her back and settled between her spread thighs. One hand fisted tight in Carol's hair and the other between her legs. Two fingers driving deep, then three, stretching her open. Zosia's mouth was at her throat, teeth grazing, voice low and filthy in her ear.

"You feel that?" She curled her fingers hard against that perfect spot. "Tell me how it feels."

Carol moaned, hips jerking desperately.

"It's—fuck—so deep," she gasped, voice wrecked. "Your fingers are filling me up and stretching me so wide it burns. God, Zosia. I can hear how soaked I am—"

Zosia growled and fucked her harder.

"More," Zosia ordered.

Carol's words spilled out broken and shameless. "It's too much—my clit's throbbing against your palm every time you thrust. I–I feel so full, so fucking owned. I can't think, I just need you deeper, Zosia please—"

"God," Zosia breathed, clearly fighting for control herself.

"Don't stop," Carol begged. "Please don't stop. I need it harder—"

"I've got you," Zosia growled against her ear. "I've got you."

The orgasm built slowly this time, almost agonizing. Zosia kept her right on the edge, fingers relentless, until Carol was whimpering and pleading with humiliating clarity.

"Please let me come. Please, Zosia, please, I'm right there, I'll be so good—"

"Come for me," Zosia whispered against her ear, and finally gave her everything.

Carol came apart harder than the first time, longer, louder, shaking violently as the orgasm crashed through her in heavy rolling waves. She was still trembling and gasping when it finally released her, Zosia's fingers slowing but staying deep inside her.

_

Afterwards the room was quiet except for their breathing. Carol lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. Zosia stretched out beside her, propped on one elbow, close enough that Carol could feel the heat of her skin but not quite touching. A thin strip of light from the hallway lamp cut across the floor under the door. Something tight and unfamiliar lodged behind Carol's sternum. She pressed it down hard and kept her eyes on the ceiling.

After a long silence Zosia spoke, voice low and lazy. "Your ceiling looks a lot better in here than the one in the kitchen."

Carol let out a short laugh. "The kitchen plaster is original. It holds grudges.

"I could fix that for you tomorrow," Zosia said.

"You've done enough to this apartment for one day."

Zosia shifted closer, her fingers tracing a slow line down Carol's stomach. "Is that what I've done?" she asked, amused. "Fixed your apartment?"

Carol turned her head on the pillow. For a moment she just looked at Zosia. At the easy confidence in her face and at how young and alive she looked even in the dim light. The tightness behind her sternum ached.

"No," Carol said. "You didn't just fix the apartment." Her voice wavered. "You walked in here like it was nothing and… tore me wide open. I haven't let anyone do that in a long time. Maybe ever."

Zosia's face softened. Her hand stilled on Carol's hip.

Carol swallowed and looked away again, back to the safe blankness of the ceiling. "I'm not good at this. The casual thing. The letting someone see me like that. I feel stupid even saying it out loud."

"Hey," Zosia murmured. She moved closer, sliding an arm around Carol's waist and pulling their bodies together. "You're not stupid. And this doesn't feel casual to me either."

Carol let herself be held, though every instinct told her to pull back. She could feel her own heartbeat against Zosia's skin, too loud, too honest.

"I don't know what I’m doing," she admitted, barely above a whisper.

Zosia pressed a slow kiss to her shoulder. "Then don't decide tonight," she said. "Just breathe. I'm right here."

Carol closed her eyes and allowed herself to stay in the warmth of Zosia's arms, the dangerous feeling in her chest loosening just a fraction. For the first time in years, she didn't immediately push it away.

Chapter Text

Carol woke up at six and did not move. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the slow, steady breathing beside her.

Zosia was asleep, completely naked, sprawled on her back with one arm flung above her head. The sheet had slipped down to her hips revealing her smooth stomach and bare chest. Carol let her gaze trace every inch, lingering on the faint marks she had left on Zosia's throat the night before. A slow heat stirred low in her belly, but guilt twisted sharper right behind it.

She should get up. Coffee. Work. Essays to mark. A class to teach. She stayed where she was, hyper-aware of Zosia's warmth, their bare legs lightly tangled under the sheet. This was the part she never allowed herself. The morning after. The quiet wanting. What if she couldn't give Zosia what she deserved? What if she was too broken, too closed off after Helen's death to ever really let someone in again? Zosia was only twenty-six. She still believed people could be whole. Carol wasn't sure she was capable of that anymore. She was terrified of hurting her.

Eventually she slipped out of bed anyway, careful not to wake Zosia, and padded to the kitchen.

She made coffee and stood at the kitchen window, watching the pale light slowly strengthen over the wet street. The storm from the day before had left everything clean and quiet. She drank slowly, trying to steady the strange ache in her chest. At 6:40 she heard bare feet padding down the hallway.

Zosia appeared in the doorway, gloriously naked, hair messy and eyes still soft with sleep. She walked straight to Carol without hesitation and wrapped her arms around her from behind, pressing warm bare skin against her back.

"You've been up a while," Zosia murmured.

"Almost an hour." Zosia's hands slid under Carol's tank top, stroking slowly across her stomach. "Come back to bed."

"You have work."

"Not for an hour."

Zosia kissed the side of her neck, then gently bit down. "I want you again. I want to taste you before I go."

Carol hesitated, her body tensing slightly. She wanted to say yes. Part of her desperately wanted to. But the daylight made everything feel more exposed, more dangerous.

"I... You should probably get ready," she said quietly. "You have work soon."

Zosia went still behind her. After a moment, she pulled away.

Carol turned around just in time to catch it. The hurt Zosia wasn't fast enough to hide. Something in her dark eyes had gone quiet, and she'd crossed her arms over her chest, like she was bracing against something.

"Oh." Her arms tightened over her chest. "I just thought, after last night... you might want me to stay with you a little longer."

The quiet hurt in her voice made Carol's chest ache.

"Zosia…" Carol stepped closer and gently took her hands. "It’s not that I don't want to. I do. I want it so much it scares me." She swallowed, forcing herself to be honest.

"I haven't woken up next to someone in years. I haven't let anyone stay the night in a very long time. When the light comes in, I start thinking too much. I'm scared I'm going to hurt you because I don't know if I'm ready to give what you deserve."

"Zosia looked at her for a long moment, the hurt still lingering in her eyes.

"I'm not asking you to give me anything you're not ready to give me, Carol. I just... I really liked being with you last night. It felt good, it felt safe. I guess i just didn't want it to end so fast. That's all."

Guilt settled heavy in Carol's chest. She'd done that, made Zosia feel like she had to apologize for wanting her. 

"I'm sorry," Carol murmured against her shoulder. "I'm not pushing you away. I'm just, slow. Can you be patient with me?"

Zosia exhaled and wrapped her arms tighter around Carol's waist. "Yeah," she said quietly. "I can be patient."

Carol closed the distance in one step and pulled Zosia against her, arms wrapping tight around her waist. Zosia melted into the hug immediately.

Fuck, Carol thought. I want it too. I want her again so badly.

She pressed her face into the warm curve of Zosia's neck for a second, breathing her in. Then she pulled back just enough to meet her eyes.

"Hm… I'd actually like to go back to bed."

Zosia blinked, surprised. "You don't have to—"

"I want to." Carol took Zosia's hand, lacing their fingers together. Her thumb brushed over Zosia’s knuckles, reassuring. "Come on."

They went back to the bedroom, Carol leading the way. Once inside, Zosia turned her around carefully and guided her down onto the bed, then climbed on top of her. There was no rush at all. They simply looked at each other.

Zosia brushed Carol's hair back from her face. "I like seeing you like this," Zosia whispered. "Without the walls."

Carol's pulse climbed. She felt completely naked, every guard stripped away. And still, the tenderness in Zosia's eyes made the vulnerability feel like a gift rather than a wound. "I... I don't usually let people see me this way," her voice quiet.

"I know," Zosia answered, her fingers tracing Carol's cheek. "That's why it means so much. You're so beautiful when you let go."

Carol let out a shaky breath and reached up to touch Zosia's face, "I feel safe with you. Even if it scares me."

Zosia smiled. She leaned down and kissed her softly. "Good. I want you to feel safe."

They stayed like that a little longer, trading slow kisses, hands tracing each other gently, breathing each other in. No urgency, just closeness. There was something terrifying in feeling this safe, this seen, and Carol let herself sink into it anyway.

"I want to see you again," Zosia said quietly, tracing a pattern on Carol's stomach. "Tonight."

Carol stayed silent for a moment, staring at the ceiling. The fear was still there, the fear of hurting her, of not being enough. But so was the desire to try.

"Okay," she said finally.

Zosia smiled against her shoulder. "Good."

-

Later in the kitchen Zosia drank her coffee standing up while Carol sat at the table. The silence between them felt strangely intimate. Before leaving, Zosia pulled Carol in for one last slow, deep kiss, her hand possessively cupping Carol's ass through her clothes.

"I’ll text you," she whispered against her lips. Then she was gone. 

Carol went to the bathroom, turned the shower on hot, and stepped under the spray. She washed away the smell of sex and Zosia's skin, but the guilt remained. Three years since Helen died and this was the first time she had let someone stay overnight. The first time in years she had felt wanted like this. But what if she couldn't be what Zosia needed? What if she was only capable of taking now, never of truly giving again?

She dried her hair, put on dark trousers, a white shirt and her charcoal jacket. She checked her bag: manuscripts, notes for the workshop, a bottle of water, and before leaving the apartment she picked up her phone and called Manousos.

He answered on the second ring. "¿Carolina. Qué pasa ? It's early even for you."

They had been friends for six years. He had known her with Helen. He had sat with her in the hospital, held her up at the funeral, brought her food for weeks afterward when she couldn't get out of bed.

"I slept with someone last night," Carol said without warning. "And she stayed over."

A low whistle. "Ay, bendito. Finally. Tell me everything. Is she nice? Is she good to you?"

Carol leaned against the kitchen counter. "She's twenty-six, Manousos. A plumber. She came to fix a leak and… ended up in my bed. Twice. And this morning again."

"Twenty-six," he repeated, half amused, half concerned. "¿Estás loca? That’s a big gap, Carol."

"I know. But it's not even that. I'm scared I'm going to hurt her. I don't know if I'm capable of this anymore. It's been three years and I still feel… half here. What if I'm just using her to feel something?

Manousos was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again his voice was gentler. "Mi vida… you're not half a person. You're healing. And it's okay if it's messy. Just don't close the door before you even try. Talk to her. Be honest when you can. And if it gets too heavy, you call me. ¿Entendido?"

Carol closed her eyes. "Entendido. Thank you."

"Cuídate, Carol. Te quiero."

"Love you too."

She hung up feeling a little lighter, but the knot in her chest remained. Carol stood in the kitchen for a moment longer, phone still warm in her hand. Manousos' words echoed in her mind, but they couldn't completely silence the fear. She finished getting ready, checked her bag one last time, and locked the apartment door behind her.

She took her car. The drive to work was quiet, the streets still damp from the storm the day before. She kept both hands on the wheel, trying to focus on the traffic. But her body betrayed her at every red light: the faint soreness between her thighs, the memory of Zosia's mouth on her skin. She shifted in her seat and turned the radio up a little louder to drown out her thoughts.

-

The atelier was on the third floor of an old building that smelled of dust and old paper. Carol loved it. The ceilings were high, the long wooden tables were scarred from years of use, and light came in through the tall windows. When she pushed open the door, a few students were already there, chatting quietly or going over their drafts. She gave them a calm smile, took off her jacket, set her phone face down on the desk, and began.

"Ending is not the same as stopping," she said, walking along the table. "A good ending has to feel inevitable, but not predictable. Let's look at Vera's piece from last week."

The discussion flowed naturally. When Kim raised her hand and admitted she was afraid her story was "too quiet," Carol leaned on the table. "Quiet can be powerful. The tension is often in what isn't said. Trust your reader to feel what you're not spelling out."

She spent extra time with Jimmy, who was struggling with structure, giving him concrete suggestions on how to tighten his scenes. She encouraged Mike, whose raw emotional piece had clearly cost him something to share, telling him that vulnerability on the page was a strength, not a weakness.

She was mid-sentence, explaining how a scene must earn its own ending, when her phone lit up on the desk. She ignored it. Five minutes later it lit up again. The vibration felt louder than it should have. A small flicker of heat ran through her body. She kept her expression neutral and turned back to the group. During the break, once the last student had left the room, she sat at het desk and picked it up.

Zosia had written: how's class going, professor?

The second message was a photo. Zosia sitting in the driver's seat of her van, overalls unclipped and pushed down to her waist, white t-shirt damp with sweat and clinging transparently to her breasts. Her nipples were clearly visible through the thin fabric. a Her hair was tied backn a few strands stuck to her neck.

Carol's thighs clenched together under the table. She was a middle-aged professor sitting in a room who'd be soon full of students again, and she was staring at a photo of her much younger plumber who had fucked her last night. The shame burned on her cheeks and she was getting wet between her legs. It was ridiculous. It was dangerous.

She got through the rest of her class. Her voice stayed steady, her feedback landed where it needed to. She was exactly who she needed to be in that room. But inside she was somewhere else entirely.

Every time she paused, the image of Zosia's damp t-shirt flashed behind her eyelids. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, trying to ignore the constant throb between them. She hated how easily Zosia could do this to her. She hated how much she liked it.

When the class ended she stayed a few extra minutes. Answered questions she wouldn't remember. Recommended a few books. Then the room was empty and she packed her bag and left the building.

She walked to her car, got in, sat for a moment.

Then she drove home.

-

The moment she closed the apartment door behind her, she leaned against it for a second, then went straight to her bedroom.

She lay on the bed in just an old t-shirt and her boxers, and opened Zosia's photo again. Her hand was between her legs before she could talk herself out of it. She was soaked. She rubbed her clit in tight, rough circles, eyes fixed on the picture, just remembering how she felt last night with Zosia's fingers deep inside her and her tongue working on her clit. She got close way too fucking fast.

She stopped, breathing hard, her body buzzing with frustration.

Fuck it, she thought. If I’m this worked up, I’m going to make her feel it too.

Driven by a sudden surge of filthy confidence, Carol took three very explicit photos.

The first showed her strong abs flexing under the lifted t-shirt, one hand gripping the hem. The second captured her biting her lip, arm muscles tense as she sucked her own wet fingers. And the third was a close shot of her soaked boxers pulled aside, with her swollen clit visibly throbbing and her thighs glistening.

She sent them.

The phone rang almost instantly. 

She answered on the second ring.

"Kurwa, Carol… Look at you. Those abs, those arms… and that dripping pussy. You're really showing off for me, huh? You're so fucking wet I can see it shining on your thighs. Jesus."

Carol's face burned, but the hunger in Zosia's voice made her clit throb harder.

Zosia let out a shaky exhale. "Put the phone on speaker and lie back. Now"

Carol obeyed immediately, setting the phone down as she lay back on the bed.

"That's it… Been thinking about you like this since I left this morning."

Carol nearly moaned. 

"You like it when I call you my good boy, don't you?" Zosia asked, teasing. "I said it a few times last night and I saw what it did to you. Your eyes got all dark, and you got so fucking wet for me."

Carol stayed quiet for a moment, then admitted, her voice a little unsteady, "Yeah… I do. But I've never really been called that before."

Zosia let out a pleased sound, almost a purr. "Yeah? Good. I like that I'm the only one who's ever called you that. Makes it mine."

These words sent another rush of heat through Carol's body.

Zosia's voice softened. "Now be a good boy and touch your clit for me. Slow circles. Tell me how it feels."

Carol's hand slid back down. The wet sounds were so loud, this was humiliating. "Fuck… I'm so wet already. My clit's all swollen and throbbing. I'm dripping down my ass onto the sheets."

"That's it," Zosia murmured. "Keep going. Nice and slow. But don't come yet. I want to hear you get desperate first."

Carol obeyed, stroking herself in careful circles. She got close too quickly.

"Zosia… I'm getting close already," she admitted, her voice tight.

"Slow down more. Barely touch it."

Carol whimpered and eased off, brushing her clit with feather light strokes. Her hips twitched anyway.

Zosia kept guiding her, slow then a little faster then slow again, drawing it out. Every time Carol got right to the edge, Zosia made her stop or lighten her touch. After the third edge Carol was breathing hard and her thighs were trembling. "God, this is so mean," Carol groaned.

Zosia chuckled. "You like it though. Listen to how wet you are. Keep going. Tell me how bad you need it."

Carol kept touching herself, voice trembling. "I really need it…  Please Zosia, don't make me wait too long."

"You're so fucking cute like this," Zosia said, clearly enjoying herself. "Thirty-nine years old, all put-together with those big strong arms, teaching your classes… and here you are falling apart on the phone because a twenty-six-year-old plumber won't let you come yet."

"Shut up," Carol hissed.

Zosia laughed. "Can’t help it. It's hot. Again. Faster now."

She pushed Carol through two more long, torturous edges until she was a wrecked, begging mess.

"Zosia, please… I can't," Carol's voice cracked.

"Come for me. Right now."

Carol shattered hard, groaning Zosia's name loud as her orgasm crashed through her. Her thighs shook violently, her back arching while wave after wave hit her. She stayed sprawled on the bed afterward, panting, phone resting on her chest.

"There you go… such a good boy for me."

Carol rubbed a hand over her flushed cheeks, trying to cool them.

"You're evil."

"Yeah?" Her voice dropped, curious and a little wicked. "You ever wear a strap? Bet you look fucking hot with one on."

"F-fuck, Zosia…" her voice cracking, higher-pitched than usual. "You can't just— shit, yeah… I've worn one. A couple times. But I always feel so stupid with it on–"

"I bet you'd be so pathetic about it, all confident until it's thick between your legs… then you'd get shy and worked up, huh? Getting off on me watching you. Maybe one day I'll make you fuck me with it just to see how desperate my big boy gets."

"Jesus Christ, Zosia…" Carol muttered, another throb rolling through her.

"Too much?" Zosia asked, still testing.

"N-no, it's not— fuck, Zosia. You're right, I'd be so pathetic with it…"

"Good." Zosia sounded pleased. "I'm picking you up at eight tonight. Wear something I can get my hands under easy. No underwear if you're feeling brave."

"Where are we going tonight?"

"I'm taking you to this little Polish place I know. Good food, cold drinks, and a booth in the back where I can tease you properly without anyone noticing." 

"Right. Eight. I can— yeah, I can do eight."

"You sound a little out of breath there, Carol," Zosia said, far too pleased with herself.

"Yeah, no kidding. Wonder whose fault that is." Carol was still trying to get her heart to slow down.

"No idea," Zosia said innocently. "Eight o'clock. Wear the brave option."

The line clicked off before Carol could fire back. She let the phone flop onto her chest, then pressed both hands over her burning face and groaned into her palms. This woman is going to be the death of me.

Chapter Text

It caught up with her a while after she hung up.

She'd been lying there with the phone on her chest, giggling into her hands like a teenager, which wasn't a thing she did. Wasn't a thing she'd been in years. And then the giggling stopped. She didn't realize she was crying until she touched her face and found it wet.

It came in the quiet after the call ended, once Zosia's voice was gone. Not big crying. She sat on the edge of the bed and let it happen, because she didn't have it in her to stop. She couldn't even say what it was about. Not sadness exactly. Closer to the feeling of a foot waking up after it’s gone numb. It hurts because it’s working again.

She wiped her face and breathed until it stopped. Then she did what she always did when something got too loud in her chest.

She got up and worked out. She went at it hard. Arms, core, the burn she could trust because it didn't ask anything of her. By the end her shirt was soaked and her head was quiet. She showered after and stood under the water a long time, and came out feeling almost steady.

She checked the time. Six. Two hours. And the second she sat down on the bed, it all came back.

It had been a day and a half. That was all. And in that day and a half she'd done more and wanted more than she had in three years, and none of it felt normal. That was the word she kept landing on. Not normal. You don't meet someone on a Monday and lose your head Tuesday. She never had, not even young, not even with Helen. She had nothing to compare it to, and that scared her most of all.

It wasn't feelings, she was honest enough to know that. You don't have feelings for someone you've known a day. She just wanted her, badly, in a way she thought she'd lost. There'd been a couple of others in three years, the rare night she let happen and then watched herself get through from somewhere far off, barely there for it. And now a hot plumber had come to fix a leak and something shut for years was wide open.

And the truth underneath was the one Carol liked least: Zosia made her feel alive again, and her first instinct was to grab that with both hands. Which was the problem. If she was reaching for Zosia mostly because of how alive it made her feel, then she was using her, holding a young woman close because she happened to be the thing that switched Carol back on after three years of half-living. It didn't matter how good it felt. Maybe it was worse because of how good it felt.

She picked up the phone.

I'm so sorry. I don't think I can do tonight.

She read it. Deleted it.

Something came up, can we do it another time?

Gone too. A lie, and Zosia would see right through it.

I think I got ahead of myself. I'm sorry.

She looked at that one a long time. It was true, at least. She sent it before she could change her mind, then put the phone face down on the bed like that would take it back.

-

Across the city, Zosia was half-dressed when the message came.

She was at the mirror, shirt open, tie loose around her neck, deciding for the fourth time that it wasn't too much. She didn't usually fuss. She was fussing, and she knew it, and she'd been letting herself because it had been a long time since she'd had a reason to.

The phone lit up on the dresser.

She read it from across the room.

I think I got ahead of myself. I'm sorry.

She picked it up, like being closer might change what it said. It didn't. For a second she just stood there with it. She’d been an hour from seeing her, and it was gone in one text.

Her first instinct was to argue. To type something that pushed, that made Carol explain herself instead of disappearing without explanation.She started typing something.Then she stopped

Because she knew what this was. It wasn't I don't want you. Not after this morning, when Carol had been the one to take her hand in the end and pull her back to the bedroom. Not after the afternoon, the call, the way she'd heard how much Carol wanted her. There was something heavy on Carol that Zosia hadn't been let near, something that had kept her shut a long time. This wasn't rejection. It was someone scared of how much they wanted something reaching for the exit because the exit was the part she knew how to do.

So go, then. Grab the keys, drive over, call it out to her face. She actually picked them up.

Then she put them back down, because the careful part of her said what it always said when she got like this. You chase. You always chase. You throw yourself at the locked door, and then you wonder why you end up on the wrong side of it. Not this time. If Carol wanted the door shut, Zosia wasn't going to be the one holding it open with her whole body again.

She typed it before she could change her mind.

Okay. Take care of yourself.

Then she pulled the tie off over her head, dropped it on the bed, not at all sure she'd done the wise thing or just the proud one.

-

The phone buzzed once. She turned it over.

Okay. Take care of yourself.

Carol read it, and then read it again, as if a second look might turn up something underneath. There wasn't anything underneath. That was the whole problem. No argument, no question mark, no come on, don't do this. Three words and a full stop, exactly the size of the door she'd asked Zosia to close, closed.

She'd expected relief. She'd been so sure of it that the absence of it caught her off guard.

What she felt instead was the room going quiet around her. Not the ordinary quiet she'd lived in for three years, the kind she'd learned to work and sleep inside of. A new quiet, with an edge to it, because that morning someone had filled this place up with noise and warmth and now that person had just agreed to leave her alone.

She set the phone face down. Picked it up. Read it a third time. Put it down.

She'd done this. She'd wanted it done. And she sat on the edge of the bed and thought, funny, how getting exactly what you asked for could feel this bad. Not funny at all.

-

Carol wandered the apartment for a while with nothing to do in it. Wiped a counter that was already clean. Opened the fridge, looked at it, closed it. Put on a lamp, turned it off. She ended up at the desk without quite meaning to. It used to be where she went when she didn’t know where to go.

She slid out the pages of the manuscript she hadn’t been able to continue. Seventy of them. The fourth book of The Winds of Wycaro, the series that had basically paid for everything she owned. She'd meant only to look. Instead she read, half wincing, the way you reread your own old work. And near the top of the chapter she'd stopped on was the line. The one she'd written years ago for the back of the book.

The only thing worse than finding yourself alone in the dark is discovering you’re not alone.

This was the last thing she'd written before everything stopped. She remembered the day. She'd written it the week before Helen got sick, and then Helen got sick, and then there was no week before anything anymore, there was only after, and the page had stayed exactly here ever since.

She'd written it about Lucasia. A captain on a dead ship, certain she's the last one breathing, learning there's something aboard with her in the dark.

She read it now and it stopped her cold, because she'd written it before she understood it.

Three years alone in the dark, and she'd survived that. She knew how to be alone. She'd built a whole life out of it. And then Zosia had come up the stairs and the worse thing had happened, the thing the line was actually about. Not the dark. Discovering she wasn't alone in it. Someone aboard the ship after all, getting closer, impossible to ignore. That was the thing that had her hands shaking over the phone this afternoon. Not being left. Being found.

She sat with that. Then she turned to the page where she’d stopped, picked up the pen, and for the first time in three years, kept going.

-

Wednesday

Carol wrote. Three years unable to look at the manuscript, and now she couldn't leave it alone.

She'd written half the night, and she wrote again all day, before the gym, after lunch, before bed, and the pages stacked up beside her. The first real thing she’d made in three years.

The grim parts came easily. She could write a woman alone on a dying ship without even trying. She'd lived it.

The flashback between Lucasia and Raban, the corsair who'd stolen her heart before he was lost, was another story. She was supposed to write the tension, the build, the moment it finally broke. Every time she tried, Zosia took over. She'd see her in the kitchen that first day, the soaked white t-shirt clinging to her, asking for a towel. The way her eyes had darkened. And the wanting would come up so fast and so intense that the sentence died on the page. She left the chapter blank and wrote around it.

She almost texted her, more than once. She never did. Hi was nothing, and anything bigger meant explaining a thing she didn’t understand.

-

Zosia went for a long run this morning, pushing until her legs burned and her lungs ached, trying to outrun the frustration. It didn't work. She came back sweaty and still wired.

The afternoon, under a sink replacing pipes, her client started flirting. A pretty woman in her thirties, easy and light, the kind of thing Zosia would normally play along with. A smirk, a clever line back, maybe her number on the way out. This time she stayed polite and distant, and when the woman touched her arm she pulled away. She finished the job fast and left without the usual charm.

On the drive home she gripped the wheel too tight. Since when did she turn down easy? The answer sat heavy in her chest, and she didn’t like it. She didn't text.

-

Thursday

Carol tried to get back to the chapter she'd left blank. She'd close her eyes to picture the corsair's hands on Lucasia, and instead it was Zosia again, every time. The couch. The bed. Her own voice on the phone the other afternoon. She couldn't get a clean sentence out, and by late afternoon she was flushed and restless and done fighting it.

She ended up on the couch with her hand slipped into her boxers, eyes closed, thinking about Zosia's voice saying good boy as she came. She touched herself remembering how wet she'd been, and how shamelessly she'd fallen apart under Zosia's mouth and hands. She bit her lip to stay quiet.

Afterward she lay there, ashamed. She still didn't text.

-

Zosia worked late, a job that ran over, and she was glad of it. No room in her head for anything else.

She got home, showered, and her phone buzzed.

still good for tonight? x Nadia.

And Zosia stood there and realized she'd forgotten completely. They'd had this set for a week, the usual thing, easy. A month ago she'd have been looking forward to it. It had gone clean out of her head.

She looked at the message and waited to want to go.

She didn't.

That was the part that bothered her. Not Carol exactly, she'd have told herself Carol had nothing to do with it. It was that an easy night had landed in her lap and she felt nothing about it, when a week ago she'd already been on her way.

She typed back. sorry, can't tonight. something came up.

Nadia sent back no worries x, easy as ever. That was the whole point of Nadia. No weight to it. Zosia put the phone down.

She didn't text Carol. But she lay awake a while anyway.

-

Friday

The phone rang while Carol was at the desk. Manousos.

"You re alive."

"I'm alive."

"Three days, no word. Last I heard you had a plumber in your bed and then nothing. So which is it, good or bad?"

Carol put the pen down. "I've been writing."

"Writing writing? Or marking papers and calling it writing?"

"The fourth book."

"Carolina!" He knew what the fourth book was. "Okay. That's big."

"It's a few pages. Don't make it a thing."

"It's already a thing. And the plumber?"

"That's the part I'm not writing about."

"Mm." He let it go. "Bueno. Here's what's happening. It'sFriday, you've been in that apartment all week, you're coming out with me tonight. There's a band, there's a bar, and I'm buying. Say yes before your brain catches up."

"Manousos."

"Di que sí."

She looked at the page. At the quiet at her place that had stopped feeling like peace.

"Yes," she said. "Fine. Yes."

"There it is." She could hear the grin. "Wear something nice. I'll get you at nine."

-

The bar was below street level, down a flight of stairs that got louder the further down you went. Low ceiling, brick walls, a small dark stage at the far end. The room was almost full. Manousos had a beer in her hand before she'd finished looking around.

"There," he said. "People. Music. This is what they do, Carolina. They leave the house."

"I leave the house."

"To teach and buy oat milk. That's not the same."

He steered her toward the side wall, near a shelf where she could put her drink.

"My neighbour knows the band. Local. Loud, he says. You'll hate it and it'll be good for you."

Carol let herself be parked against the wall. It was easier than arguing, and easier than being home with the manuscript and the quiet. She drank her drink. She let Manousos talk, and for a while the noise in the room was louder than the noise in her head.

The lights dropped. The crowd shifted toward the stage, and Carol drifted forward a step with them, glass in hand, more out of politeness than anything.

Someone crossed the dark stage. A kick drum thudded twice. Then the last one stepped up to the mic, pushed her hair back from her face, and the light came up red and caught her, and Carol went still before she understood why.

Zosia.

A guitar low across her, sleeves pushed up, standing in the light. She said something into the mic that Carol couldn't hear over her own pulse. The crowd answered, and then the first chord hit. Zosia opened her mouth and sang.

It was nothing like her speaking voice. Bigger. Rougher. It went straight through Carol.

"Oh, they're good," Manousos said beside her.

"See? Aren't you glad I dragged you out."

Carol didn't answer. She couldn't. She stood against the wall of a bar she'd never been to, watching the woman she’d spent three days not texting do something she hadn't even known she did, and understood that there was no version of tonight where she got to keep hiding.

She thought about leaving. She didn't move.

A few songs in, between numbers, Zosia's eyes moved over the crowd the way they do when you're on a stage, not really seeing anyone. And stopped.

Carol felt it land. Watched Zosia's face change, the small stall, the question. For a second neither of them looked away. Three days of silence, a whole city of bars, and they were both in this one.

Then Zosia leaned back to the mic, eyes still on her, and counted the band into the next song. The set went another half hour. Carol stood through it and didn't really hear it. She was too busy looking. This was a whole person she hadn't known three days ago, and she'd spent those three days telling herself she barely knew her. Here was the proof, and it didn't feel like relief.

"You've gone strange," Manousos said. "You’ve been strange since they came on. Do you know her?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of how."

"The plumber," Carol said.

It took him a second. Then his whole face lit up, and he looked from her to the stage and back. "Esa es la plomera?" He grabbed Carol's arm. "Carolina. She's gorgeous. You said you had a plumber, you did not mention she looked like that.

He was still staring at the stage, delighted for her. "Mírate. Good for you.”

The song ended. The lights came up a little. The band started packing up, coiling cables, lifting the cymbals down. Carol watched Zosia hand her guitar to someone, say something to the drummer, and step off the stage into the crowd. Not toward the bar. Toward them.

"Okay. That's my cue." He drained the last of his drink and set the glass down. "I'm going to go be anywhere else. Suerte, Carolina."

-

"You came out," Zosia said.

Carol swallowed. "I didn't know you played."

"I didn't know you went to bars."

She looked at Carol, no warmth in it. "You've been avoiding me since Tuesday."

Carol nodded slowly. "Yeah. I have."

"You know I was already dressed? Ready to head over to you." She shook her head. "We had the morning, that whole phone call, a date planned. And then a text, and nothing."

Carol gripped her glass tightly, staring at the floor for a long moment.

"What the fuck happened, Carol?"

Carol's voice came out shaky. "After the call ended… it all hit me. It had only been a day and a half. And I already wanted you so badly. I couldn’t stop thinking about you–"

"So you shut me out?"

"I felt like I was using you," Carol said. "You make me feel alive again after three years of feeling almost nothing. My first instinct was to grab onto you with both hands. That's not fair to you."

Zosia studied her face. "That's what you've been telling yourself these last few days?"

Carol nodded, eyes glassy. "I felt disgusting. Like– like an animal. Like I had no control. I kept replaying the phone call, the photos I sent you… it scared me how much I wanted you."

Zosia was quiet for a few seconds. Then she asked, more seriously: "Carol. What happened three years ago?"

Carol looked up at her. For a moment she didn't say anything. "I lost my wife," she said finally. "Helen. Three years ago."

Zosia went quiet. Whatever was left of the cold dropped out of her. "Fuck," she said. "I'm sorry."

Carol wiped her eyes quickly. "After she died, I shut down completely. I felt almost nothing. No desire, no real connection with anyone. And then you showed up… and suddenly everything came back at once. It terrified me. I didn't know how to handle it, so I ran."

Zosia nodded slowly. But the hurt was still in her voice when she spoke. "I wish you had told me," she said quietly. "Instead of cancelling an hour before and going silent. Do you know what that's like? Getting dressed for someone, and then getting a text that says you got ahead of yourself?"

"I know," Carol whispered. "I'm sorry. I thought pulling away was the right thing. I thought I was protecting both of us."

Zosia shook her head. "It wasn't. It hurt. A lot."

"I'm really sorry, Zosia."

Zosia was quiet for a moment, looking at her. "You don't have to punish yourself, you know," she said, softer now.

Carol looked up, surprised by it.

Zosia continued, "After three years of feeling nothing… you finally feel something again. And instead of letting yourself have it, you're trying to shut it down. Why?"

"Because it scares me."

"Why?"

"Because it was a day and a half, Zosia."

"So?"

"So that's not normal."

"According to who?"

Carol opened her mouth, then closed it again.

"I don't know," she admitted.

"You wanted me."

Carol looked away.

"You still want me."

The silence stretched.

"Yeah." She swallowed, "I spent the last three days trying not to think about you."

"Did it work?"

"No."

"No?"

"No. It didn't work, Zosia. I kept replaying everything. That night. The phone call. That morning. Every time my phone buzzed I hoped it was you."

Something softened in Zosia's face.

"The stupid part is that I still wanted to call you." Her voice dropped lower. "I still do."

The words seemed to cost her something. For a moment neither of them spoke.

Then Zosia asked, "So why are you acting like that's something to be ashamed of?"

Carol looked down. "Because after Helen, all of that just... stopped, Zosia. Desire. Attraction. Everything." Her fingers tightened around the glass. "And it came back all at once with you, and now I feel like– it feels–"

"It feels alive," Zosia said.

Carol blinked.

"It feels human, Carol."

For a second Carol looked like she might cry again.

"For what it's worth, I wanted you too."

Carol's head came up. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "I'm not talking about feelings. I'm not secretly planning our future. I'm not looking for a girlfriend."

Despite herself, Carol huffed a laugh.

"I just know I liked what happened between us." The smile faded into something more earnest. "And I'd like it to happen again."

Carol stared at her.

"We don't have to figure out what we are," Zosia went on. "We don't have to make promises. But if you want me, Carol, I'm not hard to find."

For the first time all evening, Carol smiled. Small. Unsteady. Real.

"I do want you."

"There she is."

Carol rolled her eyes. "Don't."

"I was starting to think I imagined the woman who spent a whole phone call begging me to-"

Carol covered her face. "Oh my God."

Zosia laughed, and it loosened something in Carol's chest.

"I'm still scared," she admitted.

"I know."

"I might make this complicated."

"Probably."

Carol groaned. "You're not helping."

"I'm serious. You probably will. You're Carol."

That pulled another reluctant laugh out of her.

"But next time," Zosia said, "tell me. Don't disappear."

Carol nodded.

"I can do that."

"Good," Zosia said. "That's enough for now."

The weight between them lifted just a little. She tipped her head toward the bar. "Buy me a drink. I bled on that stage and then bled some more down here. Least you can do."

Carol huffed a laugh. "Pretty sure I did most of the bleeding tonight."

"Details." Zosia was already steering them through the thinning crowd.

They took stools at the end of the bar. Carol paid for the drinks, and for a few minutes it stayed soft, careful, both of them feeling their way back to easy ground.

"So the band," Carol said. "How long?"

"Since I was fifteen. Old garage and friends louder than they were good." She giggled. "The singing came later. It's a good way to get rid of what you can't say."

"You looked like you belonged up there. Like the stage was yours."

Zosia's mouth curved. She leaned an elbow on the bar, closer now. Their knees had ended up touching underneath and neither of them moved away.

"Years of faking it. Pretending I'm not about to fluff a chord in front of a full room."

Carol felt it low in her stomach. "You didn't look like you were faking."

Zosia's eyes dropped to her mouth, then came back up. "You kept looking at me during the set."

"Hard not to." It came out quieter than she meant. "You're distracting up there."

"Distracting." Her thumb brushed the side of Carol's knee. "Good distracting, I hope."

"The kind that makes it hard to think."

Zosia leaned in, her mouth close to Carol's ear.

"Keep talking like that and one drink turns into us leaving."

Carol's pulse kicked. She didn't pull back. "Maybe that's the idea."

By the time the glasses were empty there was nothing careful left between them. They stepped out into the cold. Zosia loaded the guitar into the back of the van, then looked over at Carol under the streetlight.

"My place is closer," she said. "If you w–"

"I want that."

-

The drive didn't take long. Neither of them talked. Carol just sat there taking her in, her hands on the wheel, the smell of sweat and leather, her face lit up and dark again as they passed under the lights. By the time they pulled up her heart was pounding.

Zosia's flat was the top floor of an old brick building. She pushed the door open, turned on the lights, and Carol took it in slowly: guitars on stands and on the wall, a drafting table buried under mail and half-finished sketches, records stacked on the floor. There was a motorcycle helmet sat on a shelf by the door, and Carol's eyes caught on it. She hadn't known Zosia rode. One more thing she didn't know.

It smelled like her.

"It's a mess," Zosia said, not sorry about it. She dropped her keys in a dish by the door.

"It's perfect."

Zosia turned, jacket already off, and then she was right there, close enough that Carol could feel the heat off her. "No second thoughts?" she asked.

"Plenty." Carol let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "But I’m staying anyway."

Zosia reached out, took a handful of Carol's shirt, and pulled her in.

The kiss wasn't gentle. Three days of silence hitting at once. Zosia backed her into the wall, one hand still in her shirt, the other on her hip, and Carol made a loud sound against her mouth and kissed her back just as hard.

When they broke for air, Zosia rested her forehead against Carol's, breathing fast.

"Bedroom's that way," she said. "Last chance to change your mind."

Carol's fingers tightened on her shoulders. "Shut up and take me there."

Chapter Text

The bedroom door shut behind them and Zosia backed Carol across the room without a word, both hands fisted in her shirt, and Carol went where she was steered because Zosia didn’t leave room for anything else. Her mouth was already in Carol's jaw.

“Three days,” she said. “I was dressed? Tie and everything. Sat there waiting on you like an idiot.”

“Zosia, I—”

“No. You don’t talk yet.” Her teeth caught the side of Carol’s neck and Carol’s breath punched out of her. “You got to vanish for three days. Tonight you make it up to me. However I want it.”

She bit down harder, slow, leaving a mark that would still be there in the morning. Carol’s hands came up and held on, kissing her back just as hard, and Zosia hummed into her mouth, pleased with it.

She kept Carol off balance the whole way across the room, never letting her settle. A hand slid up and rested loose around Carol’s throat. No pressure in it. Just there, just enough that Carol felt the weight.

“You’re shaking,” Zosia said. “Already. I’ve barely touched you.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.” Zosia kissed her hard, teeth catching Carol’s lower lip on the way out, and laughed when Carol chased her mouth. “That’s what I thought.”

She got both hands under Carol’s shirt and shoved it up, palms dragging over her stomach and up over her ribs. She walked her back the last step until the backs of her knees hit the bed, mouth moving to her jaw.

“I’m gonna make you pay,” she said. “Sit.”

—

She pushed Carol down till she sat on the edge of the bed. Then she went to work like she had all the time in the world.

She undressed her like it was hers to do. The shirt came off over Carol’s head, then the bra, drawn slow down her arms. She hooked her fingers in the waistband of the boxers and waited until Carol lifted her hips, then dragged them off and dropped them on the floor.

Carol sat there bare and let it happen. That was the thing. She just let herself be stripped.

Zosia stepped back and took her time looking. Carol felt the look move down her body like a hand, and had to fight not to cover herself.

“Don’t,” Zosia said, catching it. “Hands at your sides. I want to look at you.”

Carol put her hands down. Held still under it. Her face was burning and her thighs had pressed together without her meaning to. Zosia clocked that too.

“Open your legs.”

“Zosia.” It came out half a protest. Some old reflex wanted to stay closed, keep something back, the same thing that had her covering herself a second ago.

“Open them.” Soft. Not a question. “Let me see what I’ve been thinking about for three days.”

Carol held there one more second. Then she let her knees fall apart. The cool air on how wet she already was made her flush harder, and the small sound Zosia made looking at her made it worse.

“There you are.” Zosia crossed to the chair by the bed, piled clothes that had been there a while, and came back with something in her hand. A tie. She let it hang from her fingers where Carol could see it. “You remember this? The one I told you about. Dressed up, waiting on a woman who texted me she got ahead of herself.” She wound one end around her knuckles. “I kept thinking about what I’d do with it if you ever turned back up. Give me your wrists.”

Carol looked at the tie. Then at Zosia’s face. Her pulse was going hard in her throat.

“I’ve never—” She stopped. Started again, quieter. “I don’t really do that.”

“I know.” Zosia didn’t move closer. Didn’t push. She just held the tie there, letting Carol look at it. “That’s why I want to. You can say no. I’ll put it back on the chair and I won’t think a thing of it.”

Carol’s breath went thin. She thought about it. She thought about saying no, about how easy that would be, about how much she didn’t want to.

She held her wrists out.

Her hands were not quite steady doing it, and Zosia saw that, and didn’t say anything about it, which was somehow worse and better at once.

Zosia bound them together in front of her, a clean knot. She knew what she was doing with it. Tested it with two fingers, made sure it wasn’t cutting in, then tugged once to show Carol it would hold.

“Too tight?”

“No.”

“You want it off, you say so. Any time. I mean that.” She waited for Carol to nod. “Now. On your back. Up the bed. Hands above your head and leave them there, since you’re so good at being told.”

Carol moved up the bed and lay back, bound wrists stretched above her head. The whole length of her went tight and open with it, nowhere left to put her hands, nothing to cover. She felt how exposed it made her and made herself stay still anyway.

Zosia took her own clothes off standing over her. No show in it, no rush, her eyes on Carol the whole time.

She climbed on. Settled between Carol’s thighs.

“Eyes open,” she said. “Watch me work.”

—

She kissed down Carol’s body slowly. Throat, the mark she’d left, the center of her chest. She caught a nipple in her mouth and Carol’s back came up off the bed. She laid a forearm across her hips and held her flat and stayed exactly where she was.

“Zosia. Please.”

“Already?” Zosia looked up the line of her body, mouth still working.

She moved lower. Mouth down the stomach Carol kept so hard, tongue tracing the muscle, and Carol’s bound hands twisted in the tie above her head. Lower now. She bit the inside of one thigh, sucked another mark there where no one would see it, and settled her shoulders between Carol’s legs.

She looked at her for a second. On purpose. Letting Carol feel the wait.

“Look how wet you are,” she said. “Dripping onto my sheets.” She dragged one finger up through it, slow, not where Carol needed. “All this from getting tied up and told to lie still. You really are pathetic, aren’t you.”

“Zosia, please, just—”

Zosia put her mouth on her.

Carol’s whole body bowed. Zosia pinned her hips, held her there and worked her slow, flat strokes of her tongue. Then two fingers pushing in, curling up, finding the spot and pressing it. Carol’s bound hands grabbed at nothing. The sounds coming out of her were already past anything she’d have let herself make sober.

“Don’t stop,” Carol got out. “God, don’t stop, I’m—”

Zosia stopped.

She pulled her mouth off and held her fingers still, buried deep, not moving. Carol made a high broken sound and her hips chased it and Zosia held her down. Again.

“Why’d you—”

“Because I said you’d earn it.” She curled her fingers once, just once, and watched Carol’s whole body answer it. “You disappeared on me for three days. You think I’m going to let you come the second you ask?” She pressed a soft kiss to the inside of Carol’s thigh, eyes up on her face. “You’re going to beg. A lot. And when I finally let you, you’re going to thank me for it.”

She brought her mouth back. This time she went even slower, her tongue moving in long, sensual strokes while she listened to every broken hitch in Carol’s breath. She took her right to the edge, until Carol’s thighs were shaking against her ears and her voice broke open.

“Zosia, I’m gonna, I’m right there, please—”

Then she stopped again.

She eased her mouth away, letting the pleasure slip back once more, leaving Carol teetering on the edge.

Carol actually sobbed. A helpless, frustrated sound.

“Once more,” Zosia said. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and crawled up Carol’s body, her fingers sliding back inside her, slow, never enough. “You’re doing so well. So fucking desperate already. You feel how bad you need it?”

“Yes—” Carol’s voice was wrecked. “Yes, I need it so bad. Zosia, please—”

“Good.” Zosia put her mouth to Carol’s ear. Her fingers kept up that slow torture between Carol’s legs. “Because here’s what we’re doing now.”

—

“You remember what I said on the phone?”

Carol’s face went hot all over again. “Which—”

“You know which.” Zosia’s fingers pushed deeper, then slowed, cruel. “The strap. About making you fuck me with it.” Her voice dropped, warm against Carol’s ear. “Just to see how desperate my big boy gets. I’ve thought about it every day since. You this far gone already, tied up and crying for it. You’ll be a mess with it. I want to watch.”

“Zosia—” Carol turned her face away, the shame burning. “I always feel stupid with one on. I told you that.”

“I know. That’s the whole point.” Zosia caught her jaw and turned her back. “You’re so put together. And you’ll get that thing strapped on and go shy and useless and beg me anyway. That’s what I want.” She kissed her slow, then pulled back to look at her. “Let me see you like this. Say yes.”

Carol didn’t, not right away.

Because this was the thing. Not the act, she’d done the act. The thing was that she wanted it. Wanted exactly what Zosia had just described. The part of her that had spent three years keeping everything battened down was screaming that wanting this was shameful, that a woman her age should not be lying tied to a bed desperate to be made pathetic by someone thirteen years younger.

And then under that, was the other thing. Zosia at the bar, telling her it wasn’t shameful. That it was human. That she didn’t have to be ashamed of wanting.

Carol’s chest was heaving. She kept her eyes shut. The shame and the want were the same thing now, one big roar, and for the first time she stopped trying to pull them apart and just let herself have it.

“Okay. Yes,” she said. Small. Then again, steadier, because she meant it: “Yes.”

“Say it properly. Tell me what you want.”

It cost her. She made herself say it anyway, eyes still shut, face on fire. “I want you to put it on me. I want to fuck you with it and I want you to make me fall apart doing it.”

“There it is.” Zosia’s voice had gone rough. She kissed the corner of Carol’s mouth, pleased and almost gentle with it. “Good boy.”

—

Zosia reached over to the nightstand drawer and took it out. She held it up so Carol could see. Thick, heavy, bigger than Carol expected.

Carol’s eyes went wide. “Jesus, Zosia.”

“Mm.” Zosia turned it in her hand, watching Carol’s face do the math. “Problem?”

“That’s— a lot.”

“It is. I’ll manage.”

She worked the harness up Carol’s legs and settled it on her hips, lifting her when she needed to, buckling every strap snug while Carol lay there with her bound wrists still stretched above her head and let it be done to her. The base sat firm against her clit so that even now, doing nothing, her breath kept catching.

Zosia sat back on her heels and looked. The cock stood up thick between Carol’s strong thighs. Carol lay there bound and flushed and didn’t know what to do with any of it, and that was written all over her.

“God,” Zosia breathed. She wrapped her hand around the shaft and gave it one slow stroke, watching the way Carol’s face crumpled at the base dragging on her clit. “Look at you. Strapped up like that and you still look so fucking lost.” Another stroke. “Pathetic.”

She leaned in closer, eyes locked on Carol’s.

“Don’t worry, big boy. You don’t have to do anything but lie there and let me use it. Can you do that?”

Carol’s voice came out small and shaky. “Y–yes… I can.”

“We’ll see.”

—

She rose up on her knees and swung a leg over. She braced one hand on Carol’s chest, and with the other she took the toy and rubbed the thick head through herself, slow, coating it, letting Carol feel how wet she was.

“Watch,” Zosia said. “Head up. I want you watching me take it. Don’t you dare look away.”

Carol lifted her head off the pillow. Watched Zosia line it up and start to sink down.

It went slow. The size of it. Zosia’s mouth fell open and her breath hissed out as the head pushed into her, and she stopped there, taking it in little pushes. Carol could see it. Zosia stretching around it, her thighs flexing as she worked herself down.

“Fuck,” Zosia breathed. “God it’s splitting me open.” She sank another inch and stopped, head dropping forward, dark hair falling around her face. “Stretches me so good. You feel that? You feel how tight I am around your cock?”

“Fuck. Yes,” Carol said, straining up to watch. “Yes. God, Zosia, look at you— you’re so fucking full—”

“I know.” She flattened a hand on Carol’s stomach for leverage and took more, rocking down in filthy little thrusts, until she’d taken all of it and sat flush against Carol with a long shaking groan. Carol felt the muscle of her own abs flex under Zosia’s palm, taking her weight. She held there a second, full, adjusting. Then she lifted up slow, and Carol watched it slide free before she sank back down and groaned.

The base ground back hard against Carol’s swollen clit every time Zosia came down. Carol’s hips jerked up on pure instinct, trying to meet her.

Zosia’s hand pressed flat and hard on her stomach pinning her down. “No. You don’t move. You don’t get to fuck me. I’m fucking myself on you. There’s a difference and you’re going to feel every second of it.” She rolled her hips down again, taking her own pleasure off Carol’s body. “Lie still. Be a good boy and hold that cock right where I want it. Don’t you dare thrust.”

“Yes—” Carol’s hands fisted in the tie, knuckles white. “Sorry. I’ll hold still. Fuck, I’ll be good—”

“Good.” Zosia found her rhythm and started to ride her properly. Slow, deep rolls of her hips, taking the whole length each time, her own wet running down the length to the base, soaking Carol’s skin and dripping onto the sheets. She braced both hands on Carol’s chest and used her, head tipping back, throat working as she moaned. “God, that’s it. Look at you under me, tied up, doing nothing but letting me use you. Just a big, useless toy for me to get off on.”

Carol watched her ride. Watched Zosia’s body work, the slick mess of it, the way her stomach tightened each time she ground down hard. She could feel every place Zosia touched her. Palms pressing into her abs, nails dragging up her arms, a rough squeeze of her breast, every grip lighting her up. And through the base she felt everything: every roll, every wet grind, every clench, and she couldn’t chase any of it.

“Tell me how desperate you are,” Zosia said, breathless, still riding her. “Come on. Use your words.”

“So desperate.” It tore out of Carol, shameless now. “I want to move so bad. I want to fuck you, Zosia, please— I want to flip you over and—”

“But you can’t.” Zosia laughed, wrecked and delighted. “You just have to lie there and let me. Tied up with your cock in me and you can’t do a thing about it.” She ground down hard and Carol whimpered. “So strong and you’re crying because I won’t let you fuck me properly. Pathetic. So fucking pathetic.”

“Please,” Carol begged. “Please, my hands. Untie me. I want to touch you, I want to hold you, please, I can’t stand it like this—”

“That’s what you’re desperate for?” Zosia ground down slow, watching her squirm. “Your hands? Say it again. Beg nicer.”

“Yes. Please. Please, Zosia, I’ll be good, I want to touch you, I want to make you feel good—”

“Look at you. Begging for your own hands back.” She laughed, breathless, but her own control was clearly fraying now. She was close and Carol could see it, the flush climbing her chest, the stutter in her hips. “Fuck. Okay. Okay—”

Her control snapped. She pulled the knot loose with one hand, quick, freeing Carol’s wrists. Then she got an arm hard around Carol’s back and rolled them, dragging Carol up over the top of her as she dropped onto her back. The strap slipped free of her as they went, and she made a low frustrated sound at the loss of it, both hands fisting in Carol’s hair the second Carol was over her.

“There. Now use them,” she gasped. “Put it back in me. Fuck me properly. Don’t you dare hold back—”

Carol didn’t need it twice. She got her knees under her, reached down to line herself up, and pushed back into her in one long stroke. Zosia’s legs came up around her, pulling her in. She cried out as Carol finally fucked her with everything she had, hands gripping Zosia’s hips hard enough to bruise.

“There—” Zosia’s head dropped back against the mattress, hair everywhere. “Yeah, like that, don’t stop— Fuck me harder—”

“I’ve got you.” Carol drove into her, deep, the bed knocking the wall now. The base ground back against her own clit on every stroke and she ignored it, held off, chased Zosia instead. “Come on. You wanted to see me desperate, this is me. I’m so far gone for you. Come on my cock, Zosia, let me feel it—”

“Don’t you dare slow down— Deeper, Carol, give it to me—”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Harder. Watching Zosia come apart beneath her. “Tell me I’m doing it right. Please.”

“You’re doing so good.” Zosia’s voice cracked on it, hands clamping down on Carol’s arms.

“Take it. That’s all I’m for tonight. Use me—”

Zosia’s moans grew louder, more broken. “I’m close— fuck, I’m so close— Don’t stop, don’t you fucking stop— Fill me up, just like that—”

“Fuck, come for me,” Carol growled, pounding into her harder, desperate to give Zosia everything.

She came hard. Her whole body locked up violently, back arching off the matress.“Oh fuck— Carol— I’m coming— I’m coming— Yes, yes, yes—”. A long string of frantic, filthy Polish poured out of her between broken English cries, “Kurwa— tak, tak, właśnie tak—” her hips stuttering wildly as powerful waves crashed through her. She shook and clenched, soaked the harness, her nails digging into Carol’s shoulders. “Don’t stop fucking me— I’m still coming— God, you feel so fucking good–”

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you. Let it all out”. Carol fucked her through every pulsing contraction, hips working, holding her down through every shudder until Zosia finally started to come down.

For a moment neither of them moved. Carol stayed up on her knees over her, breathing hard, hands still gripping Zosia’s shoulders, still buried deep inside her.

Then Zosia opened her eyes and looked up at her. Took in Carol’s face. Wrecked, flushed, so obviously dying to come.

She smiled. Mean. Pleased to the bone.

“You didn’t come,” still catching her breath.

“No.”

“You held it the whole time. Even with it grinding on your clit.” She pressed a palm flat to Carol’s chest and pushed, rolling them back over until Carol was on her back again. The strap slid free and Zosia came up on her knees between Carol’s thighs. Back in charge, just like that.

“You begged so pretty for me. Let me use you and didn’t take a single thing for yourself. Such a good boy.” She dragged one finger down over Carol where the slick base of the harness sat against her soaked entrance, and Carol jerked hard with a broken sound. “So worked up you could come in about thirty seconds if I let you. Couldn’t you.”

“Zosia. Please.”

“Please what. Say it. Beg properly.”

“Please let me come. I did everything. I held still, I let you use me, please, I need it—”

“You did. You were so good for me.”

Then she reached down and worked the dildo free of the harness still buckled on Carol’s hips. She held it up between them. It was slick end to end, dripping with her.

“Look at the state of this.” Zosia turned it so Carol had to see. “Covered in me.” She dragged the wet head across Carol’s stomach, left a wet streak, then brought it back down. “You were so worried about the size earlier. Remember? That’s a lot, you said.” Her smile turned mean. “You’re going to take it now. Just like this. Still wet from me.”

Carol’s breath went ragged. “Zosia—”

“You said you wanted to feel me.” She notched the slick head against Carol’s soaked entrance. “Here. You’ll feel every drop of me the whole time I fuck you.”

She pushed.

And Carol took it. Easy, soaked, so far gone after a whole night of denial that the size that had scared her an hour ago just opened around it. She cried out. Zosia fed the thick cock into her slowly, inch by inch, watching it disappear between Carol’s legs.

“Oh fuck— Zosia—” Carol gasped. “It’s so thick… I can feel it stretching me—”

“There. Look at you. Took the whole thing.” She drew it back, slow, letting Carol feel every inch, then pushed it in again. “All that worry for nothing. Taking my cock covered in my cum like you were fucking made for it.”

“Fuck—” Carol’s voice broke. “Zosia— I can feel it… it’s so wet— I can feel your cum inside me—”

“Yeah?” Zosia fucked her with long, steady strokes, the obscene wet sounds of her own arousal loud between them. “That’s all me dripping out of you. I came all over this thing riding you and now it’s inside you.” She fucked it in deeper and Carol’s whole body jolted. “How’s that feel, hm? Tell me.”

“So good— fuck, Zosia, I’m so full of you—” her voice cracking, past shame now, past anything. “It’s so deep, I can feel you on it, fuck— Zosia, I need more—”

Her thumb found Carol’s clit and started working it in tight circles, while she kept thrusting deep and steady. “Listen to you. Couldn’t get a word out earlier and now you can’t shut up. This is what you needed the whole time, isn’t it. After all that. After lying still and letting me use you and not taking a thing for yourself.” She leaned down close. “My good boy gets to come now. On my cock. Covered in me. Say thank you.”

“Thank you—” Carol’s hands grabbed at the sheets, at Zosia’s wrist, at anything. “Thank you, please, please don’t stop, I’m so close—”

“I’m not stopping. You’re not getting away from it this time.”

Zosia fucked her harder, thumb relentless on her clit. “Louder. Let me hear how pathetic you sound.”

“I’m gonna come— fuck, I’m gonna come for you— please Zosia, please let me— I can’t hold it—”

“You held it all night for me. Now you’re going to come whether you’re ready or not. Let me hear it.”

“I’m coming— fuck, Zosia. I’m coming—”

Carol shattered.

Loud, shaking, the whole night of it crashing through her at once. Her back came off the bed and she clamped down around the dildo and came so hard it bordered on too much.

Zosia kept it deep and kept her thumb moving and worked her through every pulse, talking her through it, that’s it, good boy, all of it, give it to me, slowing only when Carol started to whimper and twitch away.

“Zosia—”

Zosia eased the dildo out slow and set it aside. She unbuckled the empty harness off Carol’s hips and dropped it off the side of the bed.

Carol was still shaking when Zosia dragged one slow finger back up the inside of her thigh.

Carol flinched so hard she nearly came off the bed. “No— no, please don’t—”

“Don’t what?” Zosia did it again. “I’m barely touching you.”

“That’s— Zosia, please—” Her voice cracked embarrassingly high and she clamped her legs shut, trying to trap Zosia’s hand, trying to get away from it. “I can’t, it’s too much, please, I just came, you can’t—”

“I can, though.” Zosia was laughing now, propped on one elbow, delighted with herself. “Listen to you. All that begging me to let you come and now you’re begging me to stop. Make up your mind.”

“You’re—” Carol got a hand over her own face. A whine slipped out from behind it. “You’re so mean. I can’t think. Don’t make me—”

“Don’t make you what? You’re not even doing anything. You’re just lying there falling apart because I touched your leg.”

“I can’t— Zosia, please—”

“Such a shame,” she said, fingers still drifting over her skin just enough to make Carol jerk. “One finger and you’re whimpering like that.”

“Stop— stop saying it, oh my god—” Carol tried to roll away and Zosia just followed her. Carol gave up and whined again. “Please. Please, I’ll do anything, just— no more. I mean it.”

“Anything?” Zosia’s grin sharpened. Then she took pity and finally lifted her hand away. “Lucky for you I’m tired.”

“I hate you,” Carol breathed into the pillow.

“You really don’t.” She wiped her hand on the sheet and settled in close against Carol’s back, arm heavy over her waist. “God. You’re so easy. You know that?”

“I am not.” Carol’s voice was muffled and entirely unconvincing.

“You are. One look and you fold.” Zosia hooked her chin over Carol’s shoulder. “You did exactly what I said all night and loved every second.”

“Though,” she added, “you weren’t pathetic the whole time. Not when I let you up here. You fucke me properly. I don’t come like that for just anyone.”

Carol turned her head, and for once she didn’t look away from it. “Yeah,” she said, quiet but even. “I liked that part a lot.”

Zosia’s eyebrows went up. “Did you.”

“Yeah.” Carol’s eyes dropped, the boldness from a second ago gone shy on her. “I... I’d want to do that again. More. Next time. If there’s a next time. I mean… properly.”

Zosia looked at her for a moment.

“We’ll see about that,” she said.

“That’s not a no.”

“It’s not a yes either.” She tucked a strand of hair behind Carol’s ear. “You have to earn that. We’ll see how good you are.”

Carol huffed, going pink, but she was smiling.

“Hey.” Zosia said, “Give me your hands a sec.”

Carol held them out. Zosia took her wrists and turned them over, thumbs running gentle over the faint pink lines the tie had left. She checked one, then the other, her face serious now in a way it hadn’t been all night.

“Sore?”

“No. They’re fine.” Carol watched her do it, something soft and unsettled moving through her chest at how careful she’d gone. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” Zosia pressed her mouth to the inside of one wrist, right over the mark, and held it there a second. “You did good tonight. Let me.”

Carol went quiet.

“Water,” Zosia said. “Don’t move. I mean it this time.”

She rolled out of bed and padded out toward the kitchen. And Carol watched her go. The whole way out the door. Her eyes dropped low and stayed there, shameless about it.

She was still looking when Zosia came back with the glass, and Zosia clocked the look on her face right away.

“Were you watching me the whole time?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t even try to deny it. “I’m allowed to look.”

“You just about died ten minutes ago. Now you’re checking out my ass.” She climbed back onto the bed and held the glass to Carol’s mouth. “Drink.”

Carol drank a few sips and Zosia set the glass down on the floor

She started to settle in, but Carol got there first. She pulled her in by the waist and curved around her from behind, fitting Zosia back against her chest and wrapping her up with her arms.

Zosia made a low, pleased sound. “Oh. This is new.”

“Problem?”

“No.” She wriggled back into her, getting comfortable. “Mm. No. Hold me with those big strong arms, professor. Go on.”

“You’re impossible.” But Carol tightened them anyway, pulled her in closer.

“That’s it. Just like that.” Zosia was grinning, Carol could hear it. “All those muscles finally good for something.”

“I will let go of you.”

“You won’t.” She found Carol’s hand and tucked it against her chest. “You like this too much.”

Carol didn’t argue, because she did. She pressed her face into the back of Zosia’s neck and held on.

“Night,” Zosia mumbled, already going heavy in her arms.

Carol pressed a kiss to the back of her shoulder, then another to the nape of her neck. “Night.”

And they stayed like that, and somewhere in the warm and the dark, they both fell asleep.

Chapter Text

Zosia’s eyes opened to grey light through the blinds.

Carol was still asleep beside her. Face half-buried in the pillow, hair everywhere, one hand loose on the sheet between them. Zosia had woken up with her arm across Carol’s waist and she hadn’t moved it yet. She looked at her for a moment. The marks she’d left on her throat, visible even now.

She looked peaceful. She hadn’t looked peaceful like this when she was awake.

Zosia pressed a slow kiss to her shoulder and Carol stirred, lashes moving.

“Morning,” Carol said. Voice rough with sleep.

“Morning, kotku.” Zosia kept her voice low.

Carol lifted her head. “What did you just call me?”

“Kotku. Little cat.” Zosia’s hand moved slowly up and down her spine. “It’s Polish.”

Carol looked at her for a second. “I’m not a little cat.”

“No? Could’ve fooled me.”

Carol hummed and pressed her face into Zosia’s neck.

Zosia smiled. “See. Kotku.” She paused. “How did you sleep?”

Carol seemed to think about this seriously.

“Deep,” she said finally. “Really deep. I slept well.”

“Good.” Zosia’s hand kept moving. “You needed it.”

Carol’s hand slid up and rested over Zosia’s chest. Zosia let her, looking at the ceiling. Carol’s fingers were warm. She could feel each one.

“You?” Carol said.

“Yeah. Better than usual.”

They stayed like that for a while. Not talking much. Carol’s fingers tracing on her chest. Zosia’s hand still moving up and down her spine.

It felt dangerously easy.

Eventually Zosia sighed.

“I have to get up,” she said. “Two sites today. First one at eleven.”

Carol tightened her arm around her waist. Just slightly. “Already?”

“Already.” Zosia kissed the top of her head. “You can stay as long as you want. Or—” She paused. “Shower with me. Before I go.”

Carol lifted her head and looked at her.

“Just a shower,” Zosia said. She met her eyes. “I mean it. I don’t have time for anything else, even if you beg very nicely.”

“I don’t beg,” Carol said.

Zosia smiled. “Liar.”

She rolled out of bed before Carol could answer.

—

Steam filled the bathroom fast. Zosia got under the water first, stood there for a moment with her eyes closed, felt the heat work into her shoulders. Heard the glass door slide open behind her.

For about thirty seconds they were fine.

Zosia washed her hair. Carol reached past her for the shampoo and Zosia moved to give her room and Carol’s hand brushed the small of her back and that was it, really, for the thirty seconds.

Zosia turned. Caught her by the waist.

“Just one,” she said, already leaning in.

It started soft. Wet mouths, water coming down over both of them, Carol’s hands coming up to her shoulders. Then Carol made a sound in the back of her throat and Zosia pressed her back against the tiles and kissed her.

Carol’s grip tightened. “I thought this was just a shower.”

“It is a shower.” Zosia kissed her again. “We’re showering.”

“Zosia.”

“I know.” She didn’t stop immediately. Her mouth moved to Carol’s throat, tasting water and skin, and Carol’s head went back against the tile and her fingers found Zosia’s hair. Zosia’s thigh slipped between hers, not pushing, just there, just pressure, and Carol rocked against it once without meaning to and made a soft broken sound.

“We really shouldn’t,” Carol said. Her hands were contradicting her completely.

“We shouldn’t,” Zosia agreed. She kissed her collarbone. Felt Carol’s breathing go ragged. One hand cupped her breast, thumb brushing over her nipple, and Carol arched into it with a sharp exhale.

“Zosia—” Carol caught her wandering hand. Then held it there instead of stopping it. “Either stop or actually—”

“I know.” Zosia pulled back. It took something out of her to do it. She pressed her forehead to Carol’s, both of them breathing harder than they should be, water still coming down. “We stop. Now. Or I’ll be late and you won’t be able to sit at your desk.”

Carol laughed. Short, breathless. “You’re the one who started it.”

“You walked into my shower.”

“You invited me.”

“For a shower,” Zosia said. “A shower.”

Carol was smiling. A real smile. Zosia had not seen her smile like that yet. She kissed her once more, soft, then handed her the soap and turned back to the wall and finished rinsing her hair.

They finished washing with lingering looks and one more stolen kiss. When they stepped out Zosia threw Carol a towel and tried to remember what she had been thinking about before Carol had walked into her bathroom.

She couldn’t.

—

Carol was pulling her shirt on when Zosia said, “I’m going to think about you all day.”

Carol stopped.

“Those arms,” Zosia said. “And I’ve seen what’s underneath that shirt now so.” She picked up her coffee. “Just so you know.”

Carol turned around slowly. She was trying not to react and not quite managing it.

“Go to work,” she said.

“I’ll drop you,” Zosia said. “On the way.”

Carol looked at her. “You don’t have to.”

“I know.” She found an apple in the fridge and shut it. “Drink your coffee.”

Carol drank her coffee.

—

The drive was easy. Carol sat in the passenger seat and looked out the window and Zosia drove and they talked a little. Carol asked about the job, what exactly a bathroom rip-out involved, and Zosia explained and Carol listened carefully, the way she listened to things, without waiting for her turn to speak. Zosia noticed. She always noticed when people actually listened.

She pulled up outside Carol’s building and left the engine running.

Carol didn’t move immediately. She sat there for a second, looking at the street through the windscreen.

Zosia looked at her.

Carol turned Zosia leaned over and kissed her, one hand on her jaw, brief and soft. Carol’s hand came up and held her wrist for a second, not pulling away, just holding.

When they broke apart Carol looked at her for a moment.

“I’ll text you,” Carol said.

Zosia smiled. “Okay.”

She got out. Zosia watched her until she was through the door. Then she pulled out into the street.

First site. She focused on that.

—

The bathroom was a full rip-out, which meant everything coming out before anything went in. Old suite, old tiles, pipework that hadn’t been looked at in decades. The client was a woman in her fifties who had a very clear vision of what she wanted and had printed photographs of it, which Zosia respected. She walked through it with her, asked the right questions, and took notes. Then she got to work.

It was loud, physical work. Drilling, lifting, carrying things out to the skip on the street. Her arms ached by midday in the good way, the way that meant she’d done something. When she finished, she packed up, left the client with a clean space and a quote for the next phase.

In the van she ate her sandwich with the window down and checked her phone.

A message from her friend Koumba.

Vault tonight? usual crowd. come if you’re around.

She typed back: yeah. what time?

She’d met Koumba three years ago at an open mic night she hadn’t planned to stay for. He played bass badly and had bought her a drink after her set and introduced her to his friends, and somehow the group had stuck. It was that kind of thing, no formal beginning, just people who kept ending up in the same places until it became a habit. A few of them had moved on over the years but the core was still there. Koumba, Priya, Jax. Nadia, who’d shown up through someone else about two years ago and had slotted in immediately, the way some people did.

She liked Nadia. Easy to talk to, easy to be around, easy in the way that meant nothing was ever loaded. They’d got drunk at someone’s birthday a few weeks back, ended up kissing in the kitchen, and then done something about it, and neither of them had made it a conversation afterward. It just was what it was. They both understood that. It worked because nobody was keeping score.

She put the phone down and started the van.

Then it buzzed again.

Carol.

A photo.

She opened it.

A mirror selfie. Sports bra, sweat still on her skin. Her abs catching the light, the definition in her arms where she held the phone. The boxers sitting low on her hips, waistband pulled down just enough to show the dark line of hair beneath.

You said you’d think about me all day so…

Zosia looked at the photo. Looked at the street through the windscreen. Looked at the photo again.

you couldn’t have waited until I wasn’t at work.

Sorry.

no you’re not.

No. Not really.

I’m trying to eat my lunch!

How’s that going.

terribly. thank you.

You’ll survive.

will I?

Probably. You seem resilient.

I was resilient before you sent that.

And now?

now I’m sitting in my van thinking about you instead of finishing my sandwich. so

Good.

Zosia looked at that one for a second. Then she put the phone away, finished the sandwich, and drove.

—

The second job was across town. A restaurant kitchen, a blocked drain. The client met her at the back entrance, an old man, and took her through.

He was fine at first. Showed her the problem, answered her questions, and left her to it. She got under the sink and started in.

She was aware of him staying in the room. Most clients left. Some didn’t, and usually it didn’t mean anything. But this one moved around in a suspicious way. After a few minutes she heard him say, to no one in particular, “They’re sending women now.” Not to her. Like she wasn’t there. Or like she was, and that was the point.

She kept working.

Later he crouched down beside her, closer than he needed to be, and said: “You’re not what I expected.” He smiled when he said it. The kind of smile that expected a thank you.

She looked at the pipe. “The block’s further along than I thought. Give me another twenty minutes.”

He stood up. She heard him move away. She kept working.

She cleared it, flushed the line, and packed up. He signed the report and she turned to go.

His hand landed on her lower back. Not passing. Settled there, fingers spread.

She stepped forward out of reach and turned around. She looked at him. He smiled the same smile, like she’d imagined it, like she was being unreasonable about nothing.

She left.

In the van she sat for a moment with both hands flat on her thighs. She breathed out once, slow.

It wasn’t the first time. It wouldn’t be the last. She knew how to handle it and she had and she was fine.

She picked up her phone and opened Carol’s name without deciding to.

second job. client said they’re sending women now. then said I wasn’t what he expected. then put his hand on my back when I was leaving.

I’m fine. just needed to say it somewhere.

Sent it. Started the engine.

The reply came before she’d reached the end of the street.

Are you okay.

yeah. it happens.

That doesn’t make it okay.

I know. I’m fine tho.

What did you say to him?

nothing. just looked at him and left.

Good. The looking is probably enough.

A pause. Then:

I hope you charged him double.

standard rate. he wasn’t worth the paperwork.

Asshole. Probably never had a woman worth looking at show up to his door.

Zosia read that twice at a red light. She smiled. Then the light went green and she drove.

—

She got home at six.

She showered, changed, stood in the kitchen for a moment doing nothing in particular.

She texted Carol.

going out tonight btw. friends. so if you text and I don’t reply straight away, that’s why

Noted. Have a good time.

She picked up her jacket and went out.

—

The Vault was already loud when she got there. The usual crowd, the bar warm and low-lit, the ceiling low enough that the noise had nowhere to go. Koumba waved from a table in the back, him and Priya, Jax and someone Jax was clearly trying to impress. Nadia was there too, already two drinks in, black leather jacket, eyeliner, and she looked up when Zosia came in with an expression that meant she’d already noticed something and was waiting.

Zosia sat down. Ordered a beer. Settled in.

The table was loud in the good way. Koumba was mid-story, Priya was laughing, Jax was flirting. Zosia drank and listened.

Her phone buzzed.

How’s your night out?

She typed back:

loud. good. you?

Quiet. Working.

Working on what.

Koumba’s story reached its punchline and the table laughed. Zosia laughed too, half a beat late.

My manuscript.

Zosia looked at that. Typed:

you’re writing again??

Yeah. Went back to it finally.

Carol. That’s amazing!!

She put the phone away. Koumba had moved on to something else and she picked up the thread.

Twenty minutes later it buzzed again.

I wrote two paragraphs. They might be terrible.

better than zero.

Marginally.

what are they about?

A flashback. Two lovers…

Zosia smiled at that.

oh. is professor sturka writing smut?

Something like that. Got inspired.

She read that twice.

The table erupted around her. Koumba had said something, she’d missed what. She didn’t look up.

are you saying I’m the reason you went back to writing?

Wouldn’t you like to know.

Zosia put the phone face down on the table. She was smiling and she didn’t try to stop it.

Nadia was watching.

“Sorry,” Zosia said. She put the phone face down.

“Don’t be.” Nadia’s glass turned slowly in her hands. “You’ve been smiling at it since you got here.”

“I smile at things.”

“Not like that.” No edge to it. “You cancelled on me the other day.”

Zosia looked at her. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“I’m not upset. You know I’m not upset.” She shrugged. “You just don’t usually. And then you didn’t say what came up. Which also you don’t usually.” She paused. “Who is she.”

Not is it someone. Who is she. Like she already knew.

Zosia looked at the table.

“Zo.”

“I don’t know what it is,” Zosia said.

“Okay.” Nadia waited.

“She called me out to fix a leak at her place and I ended up staying the night and it’s been—” She stopped.

“It’s been what.”

Zosia picked at the label on her bottle. “A lot. For a week. More than it should be.”

“How old is she.”

“Thirty-nine.”

Nadia’s eyebrows went up. Not judgement. Just noting. “Okay.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I was thinking it’s a gap,” Nadia said. “Not that it’s a problem. Those are different things.” She drank. “What’s she like.”

Zosia thought about Carol waking up in her bed. About Carol in the shower with her head against the tile. About Tuesday, when she freaked out and cancelled.

“Quiet,” she said. “Not in a cold way. She’s a writer, she was blocked for three years and she started writing again this week.”

“Because of you?”

“She said—” Zosia smiled. “She said ‘wouldn’t you like to know’.”

Nadia looked at her. “She sounds like a handful.”

“She is.”

“You like it.”

Zosia didn’t answer. That was an answer.

Nadia put her glass down. “So. Do you want her.”

“Obviously.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

Zosia was quiet for a moment. Looked at her beer.

“She makes me want to stick around,” she said. It came out simply, like it had been there all day.

Nadia looked at her. Then nodded, slow.

“Okay,” she said.

“It’s been a week.”

“I know.”

“That’s not— I don’t get like this.”

“I know,” Nadia said again. “Does it feel wrong?”

Zosia didn’t answer. That was also an answer.

“She’s got her own stuff,” Zosia said. “She lost someone. Three years ago. She’s careful. She should be. And I told her I wasn’t looking for anything.” She paused. “I don’t know if that’s still true.”

“She know you feel like this?”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

“I don’t know what I’d say.”

“You just said it fine to me.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it.” Nadia said it flatly, not unkindly. “For what it’s worth, cancelling on me, the texts all night, all of it. You’re already telling her. You just haven’t used words yet.”

Zosia had nothing to say to that.

Her phone buzzed on the table again. Carol’s name on the screen. Nadia glanced at it, then back at Zosia.

“Whipped,” she said. “Already.”

“Fuck off,” Zosia said, and picked up the phone.

How is it going. Still loud?

yeah. you still writing?

A few pages now.

I’m proud of you.

Don’t be. Go be with your friends.

She put the phone down. Nadia was shaking her head, amused.

Zosia threw a beermat at her.

—

She left just before midnight.

Said her goodbyes, hugged Koumba, caught Nadia’s eye on the way out and got a small nod, and stepped out into the cold.

She walked to the van and got in and sat there without starting the engine.

The street was quiet. She thought about the evening. About Nadia’s face when she’d said she makes me want to stick around. About how easily it had come out. About what she’d wanted underneath everything else, all night.

She picked up her phone.

you still up?

Yes. Lying in bed. You okay?

yeah. just left. sitting in the van.

Why are you sitting in the van?

She typed and deleted twice. Then:

can I come over?

Five seconds.

Yes. Of course.

No question. No what’s wrong. Just yes, of course.

Zosia started the engine.

—

Carol opened the door in an old t-shirt and sweatpants, hair tousled from lying in bed. She looked at Zosia for a second on the threshold and stepped back without a word.

Zosia came in. The apartment was quiet, the desk lamp on in the other room, the rest dark. It smelled like paper. She stood in the hallway.

Carol sat down on the sofa, legs tucked under her, and looked at Zosia. Not asking. Just there.

Zosia sat at the other end. Said nothing for a while. A silence Carol didn’t fill, didn’t poke at, just sat inside with her.

A few minutes passed, “The guy today. At the second job.”

“I remember,” Carol said.

“It wasn’t a big deal. I’ve had worse. I handled it.”

“I know.” Carol looked at her. “But it stayed with you.”

“Yeah.” Zosia looked at her hands. “The look he had. The thing he said when he crouched down beside me. And then the bar was fine, I was having a good time, and when I left I sat in the van and I didn’t want to go home.”

“Where did you want to go,” Carol said. Quiet.

“Here.” Simply. “That was the thing I kept landing on. I don’t do that. Show up at someone’s door at midnight because I had a bad afternoon.”

“You asked. I said yes.”

“I know. That’s sort of the thing.”

Carol tilted her head. “What do you mean.”

“I was talking to a friend tonight,” Zosia said. “Nadia.”

“Who’s Nadia,” Carol said.

There it was. Simple question. No weight to it on the surface.

“She’s— a friend. From a group of people I know through music. I’ve known her about two years.”

Carol looked at her. She’d heard the pause.

“We— we’ve also been sleeping together,” Zosia said. “Occasionally. It started at a party a few weeks ago, we were both drunk, and then it just— continued sometimes. It’s not a thing. She knows that, I know that.”

Carol was quiet for a moment. “Does she know about me?”

“She figured it out. She noticed I’d cancelled on her and she— yeah. She knows something’s going on.”

“What did you tell her.”

“The truth. That I don’t know what it is. That it’s been a week and it’s— a lot. For a week.”

Carol nodded slowly. Something moved across her face, small and controlled. “Is it still going on? With her.”

“I—” Zosia stopped. “We haven’t talked about it. That’s not how it works between us.”

“So it could be.”

“Carol.”

“No, I’m—” Carol looked at her own hands. “Sorry. You don’t owe me anything. We’ve known each other a week. You’re allowed to have a life.” She said it. “I shouldn’t have asked like that.”

“You’re allowed to ask.”

“I know. I just—” She stopped. Her jaw moved slightly. “I don’t like thinking about it. That’s all. Which isn’t fair. I know it’s not fair.”

“It’s fair,” Zosia said.

Carol looked up.

Zosia opened her mouth. Closed it.

“What,” Carol said.

“I haven’t thought about her.” She stopped. “Since I met you. Not really.”

Carol waited.

“I cancelled on her after we— and it didn’t—” She shook her head. “It didn’t feel like a decision. I just didn’t want to go.”

Carol looked at her. “You cancelled on her because of me.”

“I didn’t think of it like that at the time.”

“But that’s what happened.”

“Yeah,” Zosia said. “That’s what happened.”

Carol processed that. She looked away.

“And tonight,” Zosia said. “I was at the bar, I was having a good time. And I was still—”

“Still what.”

“Thinking about you. The whole time.”

Carol looked at her. “Zosia.”

“I know.”

“That’s not nothing.”

“I know it’s not nothing.”

“You were out with your friends. With Nadia. And you spent the whole night thinking about me.”

“Yes.”

Carol looked away again. Her jaw was tight.

“And then I didn’t want to go home,” Zosia said. “And I didn’t want to go to her. And there was only here.” She paused. “Which scared me.”

“Why,” Carol said. Still not looking at her.

“Because I don’t do this.” Zosia stopped. “I’m good at keeping things simple. I know what I want and I take it and I don’t end up sitting in vans at midnight wanting to be at someone’s place. That’s not how I work.”

Carol turned to look at her. “So what does it mean. That you do now.”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“Try.”

A silence.

“I told Nadia you make me want to stick around,” Zosia said. “It just came out. Like I’d been thinking it all day without knowing.” She stopped. “That’s all I know how to say right now.”

Silence. Long. Carol was looking at the wall. Zosia watched her and waited.

“Okay,” Carol said finally.

Zosia looked at her. “Okay?”

“I hear you.”

“That’s it?” Zosia said.

Carol looked at her. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. Something. Anything.” Zosia shook her head slightly. “I just told you a lot. And you’re giving me okay.”

Carol’s jaw tightened. “I know.”

“So.”

“So I don’t—” Carol stopped. Started again. “I don’t know how to do this part.”

“What part.”

“When someone says something real and I’m supposed to—” She gestured vaguely. Stopped. “I’m not good at this.”

“I’m not asking you to be good at it,” Zosia said. “I’m asking you to say something.”

Carol looked at her hands. A long moment. “I want it too.”

Zosia waited.

“Whatever this is,” Carol said. “I want it. More than I’ve wanted anything in a long time.” She stopped. “That’s the part that’s hard. Not you. Not what you just said. The fact that I want it this much and I don’t—” She stopped again.

“You don’t what,” Zosia said.

Carol looked up at her. “I don’t know what to do with that. I forgot what that felt like and now it’s back and it’s— it’s a lot to hold.”

Zosia looked at her for a moment. “Is that why you went quiet.”

“Yes.”

“Not because of what I said?”

“No. It’s because of what I felt when you said it.”

A silence. Different from the ones before.

“That’s not a small thing,” Zosia said quietly. “What you just said.”

“No,” Carol said. “It’s not.”

A long moment. Neither of them moved.

Then Carol said, “I want to try.”

She said it carefully. Like she’d been holding it for a while and had finally decided to put it down.

“I don’t know exactly what that looks like,” she said. “And I’m probably going to get it wrong sometimes. But I don’t want to let the fear make the decision. I’ve done that enough.”

Zosia looked at her.

“So,” Carol said. “I want to try. If you do.”

Zosia was quiet for a moment. “Slow is okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She paused. “Getting it wrong sometimes is also okay. For the record.”

Carol looked at her. Something in her face had loosened, just slightly. Almost a smile. Not quite.

Zosia reached over and took her hand.

Just took it. Carol looked down at their hands and then back up.

Zosia moved closer. Slow. Giving her time. Carol didn’t move back.

The kiss started soft. Just that. Carol’s hand tightened around hers and Zosia brought her other hand up to her jaw, and Carol made a small sound and kissed her back and it stopped being soft.

Zosia pulled back after a moment. Looked at her.

“You sure,” she said.

Carol looked at her. Then nodded. Just once.

Zosia kissed her again. Slow this time. No urgency in it. Just her mouth on Carol’s and her hand on her jaw and Carol leaning into it.

Their mouths moved together and it felt different. Heavier. Like they were both aware of what they’d just said and neither of them had put it down yet.

When they broke apart Zosia looked at her.

“You’re nervous,” she said.

“Yes.”

“That’s okay.” She kissed her again, briefer. “We go slow.”

Carol nodded. Her hands were on Zosia’s waist, holding on. Zosia took one of her hands and pressed it flat against her own stomach and felt Carol’s fingers spread and press in.

They stayed like that for a moment.

Then Carol said, “I want—” She stopped.

Zosia looked at her. “What.”

Carol’s jaw moved slightly. “I want to taste you.”

Zosia was quiet for a second. She looked at Carol’s face. At the flush on her cheeks and what it cost her to say it out loud.

“Yeah?” Zosia said.

“Yeah.”

Zosia reached down and pulled her own shirt over her head and dropped it. Carol watched her. Then she pulled off her own shirt, her bra, and Zosia looked at her and took her time.

She reached over and grabbed the throw cushion from the end of the sofa. She set it on the floor in front of her. Looked at Carol.

Carol looked at the cushion. Then at Zosia.

She got down.

She knelt between Zosia’s legs and looked up. Already flushed, her arms resting on Zosia’s thighs, her hair loose around her face.

Zosia looked down at her for a moment. Then she brushed Carol’s hair back from her face.

“Go on then,” she said.

Carol reached up and her hands weren’t quite steady. She unbuttoned Zosia’s jeans and pulled them down along with her underwear. Zosia lifted her hips to help, then settled back, completely bare.

Carol leaned in and pressed her mouth to the inside of Zosia’s thigh, kissing slowly upward. When her tongue finally dragged up Zosia’s slit Zosia exhaled hard, head falling back.

“There,” Zosia breathed. “Right there. Good boy.”

Carol settled in and began licking with slow, devoted strokes.

“That’s it. Nice and slow. I want to feel every lick.”

Minutes passed. Carol licked her patiently, learning her, and Zosia’s breathing gradually deepened.

“You’re doing so well,” Zosia murmured. “You really like this, don’t you.”

Carol answered with a muffled sound against her, then pulled back just enough to say “You taste so good” before her mouth was back.

Zosia let out a slow rough breath. “Keep going. Flat tongue. Yes. Perfect.”

Carol stayed between her legs a long time, licking steadily, sucking gently on her clit. Zosia’s sounds grew louder. Her hips began to rock in small movements she wasn’t controlling.

“You’re getting me so wet. Fuck. Your mouth.”

Carol’s right hand slipped down then and she started rubbing herself through her boxers. She hadn’t decided to do it. It just happened.

Zosia looked down and saw it.

“You’re touching yourself while you eat me out.” Her voice had gone rough. “God. Don’t stop. Keep going.”

Carol moaned loudly against her, clearly embarrassed and completely unable to stop. Her tongue worked harder.

Zosia’s thighs started trembling after a while.

“Slow down. Yeah. Just like that. I want this to last.”

She kept guiding Carol with short words and her hand in her hair.

“Right there on my clit. Suck a little. Oh fuck— good boy.”

The longer it went on the more Zosia lost herself. Her sounds became breathier and needier.

“Carol—” Her voice broke slightly. “You’re going to make me come if you keep sucking like that. But don’t speed up. Stay right there. Yes. Oh god.”

Carol whimpered desperately against her, hand still moving between her own legs.

“I’m getting so close,” Zosia panted. “Keep going. Please don’t stop. You’re making me feel so fucking good.”

She hovered on the edge a long time, thighs quivering, hips rocking against Carol’s mouth.

“Carol— right there— I’m so close— don’t change anything— fuck—”

She came with a long broken cry.

“Carol— I’m coming—”

Her thighs locked around Carol’s head as it moved through her in hard waves. “Fuck— Carol—” Her voice cracked. She shook through every pulse, sounds spilling out raw, until it finally released her and she collapsed back against the sofa breathing hard.

She stayed there for a moment. Then she reached down and cupped Carol’s face in both hands, thumbs moving slow over her wet skin.

“Look at me,” she said.

Carol looked up. Eyes wide and glassy, mouth swollen.

“You were so good,” Zosia said quietly. “You made me feel so fucking good.” She stroked her thumbs over Carol’s cheeks. Then she pressed a slow kiss to her forehead. “Suchh a good boy.”

Carol stayed on her knees looking up at her. Then Zosia pulled her up by the hair.

Carol climbed back onto the sofa gasping. Zosia kissed her deep and slow, tasting herself on Carol’s mouth, and Carol moaned against her lips.

Zosia pulled back and looked at her. Her hand slid down over Carol’s stomach, past the waistband, and she felt it immediately: completely soaked through, warm, ruined.

She stopped. Pressed her palm flat against it. Looked at Carol.

“Oh my god, look at you.” she said quietly. “You’re absolutely soaked.” She rubbed slow, feeling all of it. “You got this wet just from eating me out.”

Carol squirmed and looked away.

“Hey. Look at me.” Zosia kept stroking her through the soaked fabric, watching Carol’s jaw tighten with the effort of holding still. “You were touching yourself the whole time you were on your knees. I saw you. Rubbing yourself while your mouth was on me.”

Carol whimpered, hips pushing forward into Zosia’s hand.

“Zosia, please—”

“Please what.” Zosia rubbed one slow circle right over her clit through the wet material. “You got this messy just from going down on me and now you want me to touch you?”

“I— I couldn’t help it,” Carol said. Very quiet. “You sounded so good. And you kept— I’m so wet. I know. Please.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Zosia said. She pressed the soaked fabric against her and watched Carol’s whole body respond to it. “My big boy. Soaked just from having his face between my legs.” She leaned in close. “You were leaking the whole time, weren’t you.”

Carol nodded, breathing hard. “Please, Zosia. Touch me. I need it.”

Zosia kissed her neck, still moving her hand. “Beg a little more. Tell me exactly how desperate you are.”

Carol’s grip on her arms tightened. “Please,” she said. “I’m so wet I can feel it everywhere. I’ve needed you since I started, since I— please, I’ll do anything, please just touch me. I can’t—”

“Okay,” Zosia said. Quietly. “Okay.”

She slipped her hand inside the waistband and Carol’s whole body answered it immediately. A sharp inhale, hips rolling forward, head dropping back against the sofa.

“I’ve got you,” Zosia said.

She took her time. No rush. No cruelty tonight. Just her hands and Carol completely open under them, the room quiet around them, and all the things they’d said still there, not going anywhere.

Carol said her name once, near the end. Just once. It sounded different than it ever had before.

Zosia held her through it. After, she pulled her close and kept her there, one hand moving up and down her back.

Carol’s breathing evened out gradually against her shoulder.

The lamp still on in the other room.

Neither of them said anything for a while. And that was okay.

Chapter Text

—

Carol woke up first.

Zosia was still asleep, one arm across her waist. Carol eased it off carefully and got up.

The kitchen was cold. She put the coffee on and looked in the fridge. Not much. There was never much on a Sunday. Eggs, bacon, two avocados that had somehow survived the week. She got the bacon going first.

She was turning the eggs when she felt Zosia behind her, arms around her, mouth at her neck.

“You made breakfast.”

“Yeah. Sit down.”

Zosia sat. Carol put plates on the table and sat across from her. They ate.

After a while Zosia said, “Can I ask you something?”

Carol gave a small nod, pushing a piece of egg around her plate.

“When did you come out? To yourself, I mean. Not to anyone else.”

Carol was quiet for a long moment. She didn’t look up. “I didn’t, really. I just… always knew. Like knowing I had blue eyes or hated pickles.” She let out a breath. “My mother found out when I was sixteen. She walked in on me kissing a girl from school in my bedroom.”

Zosia’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. “Jesus. What did she do?”

Carol’s voice stayed flat, but her knuckles went white around the edge of the table. “Sent me to a conversion camp. Freedom Falls. Eight weeks of hell.” She swallowed.

Zosia stared at her, the color draining from her face. “Carol…”

“I kept my head down,” Carol continued. “Didn’t argue. I just counted the days until I could get out. When I came home, my father wouldn’t even look at me. He chose her side. That was that.”

The silence that followed felt thick enough to choke on. Zosia reached across the table without thinking, then pulled her hand back when Carol didn’t move.

“I’m so sorry,” Zosia whispered. “I can’t even imagine…”

Carol finally looked up. “It’s in the past. Mostly.”

Zosia hesitated, then asked softly, “Can I ask how it was? The camp. If you don’t want to—”

“Exactly what you’d expect,” Carol cut in, picking up her toast and tearing off a piece she didn’t eat. “They tried to pray the gay out of us. Some girls cried every night. A couple tried to run. One succeeded.” Her mouth twisted. “I just survived it.”

Zosia looked down at her own plate, appetite gone. After a long silence she asked, “How old were you when you were with someone for the first time?”

“Eighteen.” Carol’s expression softened just slightly. “Her name was Marie. French. Zero patience for anyone still figuring themselves out. She was… useful, actually.”

“Did it last?”

“Three months. She went back to Paris. You?”

“Seventeen,” Zosia said. “Agatha. Same school. We were together for six months, and then she decided she wasn’t actually gay after all. She started dating this boy, Marek.” A pause. “It hurt more than I let on at the time.”

“I’m sorry.”

Zosia shook her head. “It’s fine. I was already half in love with a girl on my street anyway. Nothing ever happened, but… God, that whole summer I was a mess over her.”

A quiet laugh escaped Carol’s mouth. It eased something in the air between them.

“What about your parents?” Carol asked after a moment.

“My mother went quiet for a few weeks. Not angry. Just… grieving. Like she was mourning the future she’d pictured for me; the wedding, the grandkids, all of it. I was standing right there, telling her I was in love with a girl, and she was looking at me like I’d already died in some small way.” Her voice cracked. “It was the strangest feeling. Being loved so much and being someone’s grief at the same time.”

Carol reached out this time, covering Zosia’s hand with her own.

“That must’ve been brutal,” she said. “You’re allowed to feel both, you know. The love and the hurt.”

Zosia looked up, eyes glassy. “Yeah. I know that now.”

They sat like that for a while, the remains of breakfast forgotten between them. Zosia didn’t leave that day. She didn’t announce she was staying. She simply never put her coat on, and Carol never asked her to go.

—

The week that followed was ordinary in all the ways that mattered.

Monday Zosia had three jobs. She sent a photo from under someone’s kitchen sink at two in the afternoon and Carol looked at it for longer than was strictly necessary. Carol spent the day at home. She did her workout, showered, sat at her desk. She wrote fifteen pages that day.

Tuesday Carol had office hours. Zosia texted from her van:

teacher Carol is probably very strict

I’m helping a student. Not whatever you’re imagining.

too late. I’m imagining you telling me to stay after class

You’d be in detention for the rest of your life.

worth it. should I come over tonight?

Yes.

good

She came over that night. She came over most nights that week. By Thursday her jacket was on the hook and her toothbrush was in the bathroom.

Wednesday it rained and Zosia brought her guitar. She’d been spending most nights at Carol’s now, and she wanted to put in some practice on a few pieces she was working on. She set up in the living room while Carol worked at her desk.

She played for a while, running through things. Then she started something new, something not quite finished. Carol’s typing slowed. Zosia kept playing, adjusting, going back to the beginning. After a while she stopped.

“That was good,” Carol said from the other room.

“Yeah?”

“Very good.”

Zosia played it again.

Thursday Zosia fell asleep early. She’d had four jobs and a difficult client and by nine she was out on the sofa still in her work clothes. Carol covered her with a blanket and went back to her desk.

She was still there at midnight when she heard footsteps.

“Hey.” Zosia appeared in the doorway, half-asleep. “You’re still up.”

“I wanted to finish this chapter.”

Zosia came to the desk. She put her arms around Carol from behind and pressed her face into her neck.

“Come to bed,” she said. “I missed you.”

“You were asleep.”

“I know. Come to bed anyway.” She kissed the side of Carol’s neck. “I’m not sleepy anymore.”

“Oh?” Carol turned her head slightly. “Is that so?”

“No,” Zosia said against her skin. “Come to bed.”

Carol saved the document. She came to bed.

Friday they went to dinner. Italian restaurant. Saturday they stayed in.

Sunday Zosia was at her parents’. Her grandmother had come from Poland for her birthday, first visit in two years, so Zosia went and stayed. She texted Carol from her parents’ kitchen:

my grandmother made pierogi. she keeps trying to feed me more. I’ve had 9 already

How many is normal?

4 maybe. she’s 92 and she still moves faster than me

A few minutes later.

I’m going to stay Monday too. she doesn’t visit much anymore. so we won’t see each other until Tuesday

Okay.

I hope I won’t be too missed

I’ll manage.

Carol

Fine. A little.

only a little??

Don’t push it.

haha. okay. Tuesday then

Tuesday.

—

Tuesday Carol woke up alone.

She lay there for a moment. The apartment was quiet in the old way, the way it had been before, and she noticed the difference, which meant she’d gotten used to Zosia being there way faster than she’d expected.

She made one cup of coffee. She sat at the counter and drank it. Then she got dressed, found her notes and left. The humanities building had its own smell in the morning, old paper, bad coffee, and radiator heat. She stopped in her office to check emails before walking to room 3.14.

—

The session that Tuesday was on unspoken desire in fiction. How a writer makes a reader feel something a character refuses to say out loud. The gap between what’s on the page and what’s underneath it.

“The most interesting thing a character can do,” Carol said, “is want something they won’t name. The reader knows. The other characters might know. But the character keeps circling around it, talking about everything except the thing. And that’s where all the tension lives.” She looked at the room.

A student in the second row raised his hand. They talked about the passage they were studying. Carol pushed back on his interpretation, he defended it, she waited until he was done and then said “yes, but that’s not what the text is doing” in a tone that meant the discussion was moving on. The class had learned to recognise that tone. It was a good class.

Thirty-five minutes in, she was mid-sentence, “The reader always knows before the character does, that’s the whole point, the character is the last person to understand what they’re feeling—” when the door opened.

She finished the sentence. Then she looked up.

Zosia was standing in the doorway with a toolbox and a work order, wearing a jacket with Zawadzka Plumbing on the back.

Carol said “one moment” to the room and walked to the door.

In the corridor she pulled the door behind her.

“What are you doing here,” Carol said.

“Oh my god,” Zosia said. “I didn’t know you worked here. I knew you taught but I didn’t know it was this building.”

“Where did you think it was?”

“I don’t know? Somewhere else.” Zosia held up the work order. “It’s for the radiator. Room 3.14. Faulty valve. I was told the room would be empty.”

“The schedule changed.”

“Obviously.” Zosia looked at the door. “I can come back.”

“How long.”

“Forty minutes.”

Carol looked through the gap at twelve students very definitely not looking at their books.

“Come in. Be quiet.”

“I’m always quiet.”

Carol gave her a look and went back in.

—

Zosia came in behind her. Went to the radiator. Crouched down. Opened her toolbox.

The twelve students looked up. All of them.

Carol continued the class.

“So,” she said, “the character knows. On some level, she always knows. She just won’t let herself know that she knows.” She looked at the room. “Why does a writer do that. Why not just let the character admit what she wants.”

A student raised her hand. “Because it would end the tension.”

“Exactly. And what does the tension do for the reader.”

“Keeps them reading.”

“Keeps them invested. They’re watching someone move toward something they don’t know they’re moving toward. It’s the most human thing there is.”

From the back, not quite quiet enough:

“Oh wow. She’s hot—”

“I don’t know who called maintenance, but thank God they did—”

“Shh.”

Carol said, without looking up, “Page four of your handout. The passage on restraint. Read it.”

They read in silence.

Three minutes.

“wait I work at that Italian place, I’ve seen them there—”

“what—”

“they were having dinner—”

“oh my god—”

“I knew she was gay—”

“everyone knew—”

“did they though…”

Carol put her pen down.

“Page four,” she said. “The passage on restraint.”

Silence. Four minutes.

“the way she didn’t look at her when she walked in—”

“that’s literally what she was just teaching—”

“I know—”

“the character who won’t let herself know that she knows—”

“oh my god—”

From the back, Vera, not quietly enough: “honestly I would let her fix my radiator—”

Carol said, “Anything you’d like to say to the plumber directly?”

Zosia turned around. She looked at Vera. She was very clearly trying not to smile.

Vera went completely red. “No. Sorry. No.”

“Good.” Carol looked at the room. “We are going to spend the rest of this session in silence. Page four. If I hear one more word that isn’t about the text I will give the entire class an additional assignment. Are we clear.”

Twelve heads went down.

Zosia had turned back to the radiator.

Kim raised her hand.

“No,” Carol said.

Kim put her hand down.

—

Twenty minutes in Zosia stood. “I need to turn the water off to this section. Stopcock should be near the bathrooms. Does anyone know—”

Carol said, “Since you had something to say to our plumber, Vera, why don’t you show her the way.”

Vera looked like she wanted to disappear through the floor. She stood up.

—

In the corridor Vera walked slightly behind Zosia saying nothing. Zosia let her suffer for about fifteen seconds.

“So,” Zosia said.

Vera stayed silent.

“Your radiator.”

“I’m so sorry,” Vera said. “I genuinely don’t know what happened. It just— it came out. I’ve been in that class for six weeks and said maybe four words total and then that—”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s really not.”

“It is.” Zosia kept walking. “Which way?”

“Left. Then right at the end.” Vera fell into step beside her. “She’s going to mark me down, isn’t she.”

“She’s not going to mark you down.”

“Are you sure?”

“She doesn’t work like that.”

Vera looked at her. “You know her well.”

Zosia said nothing.

“Right,” Vera said. “Sorry. I’m going to stop asking questions.”

“Probably wise.”

They turned right. The bathrooms were at the end.

“She talked about a student once,” Zosia said. “Someone who had something real to say but kept playing it safe. She said it was frustrating because you could see it there.”

Vera was quiet. “That could be anyone.”

“Could be.”

They reached the bathrooms. Vera pointed at the utility cupboard.

“Can I ask you something,” Vera said.

“Fine. You can ask.”

“You didn’t know she worked here, right? And she didn’t know you were coming. And when you walked in she just—” Vera stopped. “Are you… together?”

Zosia opened the cupboard. Found the stopcock.

“Too bad for you,” Zosia said.

Vera stared at her. “…what?”

“Too bad for you.” Zosia looked at her over her shoulder. “The radiator comment.”

“Oh my god. Are you serious right now?”

“Always.”

“So you’re with Professor Sturka.”

“Do not,” Zosia said, “tell her I said that.”

“I won’t.”

“I mean it.”

“I know. I won’t.” Vera paused. “She’s going to figure it out anyway.”

“I know.” Zosia turned the stopcock. “Go back to class, Vera.”

“Yeah.” Vera didn’t move immediately. “She’s really good. As a teacher. I don’t know if people tell her that.”

“She knows,” Zosia said.

Vera nodded. She went back.

—

Zosia came back. Finished her work. Packed up.

“All sorted,” she said to Carol. She didn’t leave.

The students filed out. Kim was the last one, throwing one last satisfied glance between them before the door clicked shut.

The room was empty.

Zosia came to the front. She set her toolbox down next to Carol’s desk and kissed her.

Carol let her. Then she pulled back.

“Now everyone knows,” Carol said. “I’m dating a sexy plumber who’s thirteen years younger than me.”

Zosia looked at her. “So we’re dating.”

Carol opened her mouth. Closed it. “I didn’t mean— I just said—” She stopped. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“You guess so.”

“We are. Yes.”

Zosia looked at her for a moment. “And what does that mean. To you.”

“It means you’re the person I’m with,” Carol said. “It means I’m not interested in anyone else. It means when something happens I want to tell you.” She paused. “Is that enough of a definition.”

“It’s a good start.” Zosia leaned against the desk. “For me it means the same things. Plus you’re my girlfriend. If we’re using words.”

“That word sounds strange at my age.”

“Carol. You’re thirty-nine. Not dead.”

“I know I’m not dead.”

“Then girlfriend.” Zosia looked at her steadily. “Say it.”

“You’re my girlfriend,” Carol said. Quietly. Trying the word on.

“Yes.” Zosia looked at her. “And you’re mine. And now twelve second-year students know. And I’m not sorry.”

“You should be a little sorry.”

“I’m not.”

A silence.

Zosia looked at Carol. Then, without breaking eye contact, she reached past her and turned the lock on the door.

“Zosia,” Carol said. “This is my classroom.”

“I know what it is.” Zosia set her toolbox down and stepped in close. “I’ve been thinking about you for two days. Every night at my parents’, lying in that bed, thinking about coming back here and doing this.”

“Doing what,” Carol said. But she didn’t move back.

“This.” Zosia kissed her, slow, her hands coming up to Carol’s jaw. Not rushed. Just certain. When she pulled back she was almost smiling. “I missed you, baby.”

“You were gone for two days.”

“Two very long days.” Zosia kissed her again, deeper this time, and Carol’s hands came up to grip the lapels of her jacket. When they broke apart Zosia stayed close. “Tell me. Did you think about me while I was gone?”

“We texted every day.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.” Zosia’s hands moved to Carol’s hips. “Did you think about me.”

Carol looked at her. “Yes.”

“What did you think about.”

“Your hands,” Carol said quietly. “How long it’s been.”

Zosia smiled. Slow and pleased. “Did you do anything about it?”

Carol’s chin tilted down slightly. “Yes.”

“And?”

“It wasn’t enough.”

“No,” Zosia said. “I wouldn’t think so.” She reached for Carol’s belt. Not quickly. Her fingers found the buckle and worked it open slowly, watching Carol’s face the whole time. The leather slid through with a quiet rasp. “Sit on the desk for me.”

“Zosia—”

“Sit on the desk.”

Carol sat on the edge of her own desk. Zosia stepped between her thighs and looked down at her. She popped the button of Carol’s trousers. Pulled the zip down tooth by tooth.

“Lift a little for me,” Zosia said.

Carol lifted her hips. Zosia eased the trousers down to her thighs and looked at what she found.

“Of course you’re wearing a boxer,” Zosia said. “Of course you are.”

“Don’t,” Carol said.

“I’m not doing anything. I’m just looking.” Zosia’s hand pressed flat against the fabric, palm warm, not moving. Just there. “Can you feel that?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Zosia kept her hand still. Just pressure. “Tell me how it feels.”

“Zosia.”

“Tell me.”

“Warm,” Carol said. Her voice changed. “Your hand is warm.”

“And?” Zosia’s palm moved slightly. Just slightly. Back and forth over the fabric.

Carol made a small sound. “And I need you to—”

“Not yet,” Zosia said. Her hand kept moving, slow, teasing through the fabric. “We’re not in a hurry. Nobody’s coming back.” She tilted her head. “Are you already wet for me?”

“Yes,” Carol said. Almost a whisper.

“We haven’t even started.” Zosia pressed a little firmer and Carol’s hips shifted. “Still,” Zosia said. “I’m enjoying this.”

“I’m not,” Carol said.

“You are a little bit.” Zosia’s fingers found the hem of the boxer and slipped underneath, skin to skin, and Carol made a sound she immediately tried to suppress. “There you are,” Zosia said softly. “Two days and you’re this worked up. Look at you.”

“Zosia please—”

“Please what. Tell me what you want.”

“Touch me properly,” Carol said. “Please.”

“I am touching you properly. I’m just taking my time.” Zosia’s fingers moved through her folds slowly, not giving her what she needed yet. “The whole time I was fixing that radiator,” Zosia said, “I kept thinking about this. You standing up there talking about unspoken desire and the whole time I’m thinking about what I was going to do to you when the room was empty.”

“Zosia.”

“Yeah?” Her fingers kept their slow exploration. “You were thinking about me too, weren’t you. While you were teaching.”

“Yes,” Carol admitted.

“What were you thinking about?”

“Your hands.” Carol’s voice was uneven. “The way you looked when you walked in. The way you— Zosia please—”

“Tell me what you need and I’ll give it to you.”

“I need you to touch my clit,” Carol said. “Please.”

“Good boy.” Zosia’s thumb found it and Carol’s whole body responded with a sound she couldn’t control escaping her. “Quiet,” Zosia said immediately, not unkindly. “We’re still in your classroom, baby. You have to be quiet for me.”

Carol pressed her lips together. Nodded.

“Good. Tell me. Is that good?”

“Yes. God yes.”

“Are you already close?”

“It’s been two days.”

“Two days and you’re already close just from my thumb on your clit.” Zosia’s free hand came up to Carol’s jaw. “Look at me. Stay with me.”

Carol looked at her. Zosia kept the slow steady circles and watched Carol’s face and did not look away.

“Tell me what you want,” Zosia said.

“Your fingers inside me,” Carol said. “Please. Two. I need to feel full.”

“Not yet.”

Carol made a frustrated sound.

“Good,” Zosia said. “You’re being so good. A little longer. Tell me again.”

“Please,” Carol said. “Please put your fingers inside me. I’ve been waiting since— Please Zosia.”

“How badly.”

“So badly. I’m clenching around nothing. Please.”

“Alright,” Zosia said. She pushed two fingers inside her in one smooth deep movement and curled them immediately. Carol’s mouth opened but the sound that came out was barely a sound, strangled by her own effort to stay quiet. Zosia’s thumb kept working her clit. “That’s it. That’s the spot. I can feel you clenching around me already.”

“Yes,” Carol breathed. “Right there. Don’t stop— Don’t change anything—”

“You love this, don’t you,” Zosia said, not really a question. “Getting fingered on your own desk. All those students sitting right there for an hour with no idea their professor was this wet the entire time.”

“Stop talking,” Carol said, but her hips were rocking into Zosia’s hand.

“Make me.” Zosia added a third finger and Carol’s head fell back. “Quiet,” Zosia reminded her. “You have to stay quiet. I’m serious. Can you do that for me?”

Carol nodded, jaw tight, riding the edge of what she could control.

“I’m so close,” she managed. “Please don’t stop—”

“Not yet.”

Carol made a muffled sound of desperation.

“Tell me you need it. Again.”

“I need it,” Carol said. Her voice was cracking. “I need to come. Please. Please Zosia please—”

Zosia’s free hand came up and covered Carol’s mouth. “Quiet,” she said against her ear. “You have to stay quiet while I ruin you. Can’t have anyone hearing my good boy.”

Carol nodded.

She moved harder, faster, her fingers and thumb working together, and Carol came apart against her palm with a muffled cry, thighs clamping around Zosia’s hand, her whole body shaking through the waves. Zosia fucked her through all of it until Carol was twitching and oversensitive and whimpering quietly.

Zosia eased her hand away from Carol’s mouth. She brought her fingers up. She paused and looked at Carol, all flushed, still catching her breath.

“Open,” she said. Not a command this time. Something gentler.

Carol opened her mouth. Zosia slid her fingers in, her other hand coming up to push Carol’s hair back from her face.

“There you go,” Zosia said. Low. “You did so well.”

Carol made a small sound around her fingers.

Zosia eased them free and kissed her. Slow and full. Her hands on Carol’s face, thumbs along her jaw. When she pulled back she looked at her.

“You okay,” Zosia said.

“Yes.” Carol’s voice was gone. “Very okay.”

“Good.” Zosia pressed her lips to Carol’s forehead. Then to her cheek. She pulled back. “You were perfect, you know.”

“Don’t,” Carol said. Almost smiling. A little undone by it.

“I mean it.”

“I know you mean it. That’s the problem.”

Zosia smiled. She kissed her once more, soft. “You’re allowed to be taken care of.”

Carol looked at her for a moment. Didn’t say anything.

Then Zosia stepped back and looked at the situation, Carol half undressed on her desk. “Okay. Up.”

Carol lifted her hips. Zosia eased the boxer back into place, then the trousers, smoothing the fabric up her thighs and over her hips carefully. She did the button. The zip. Threaded the belt through the loops one by one and buckled it and ran her thumb over the buckle. Then Carol’s blazer, pulling it back onto her shoulders, smoothing the lapels flat.

“There,” Zosia said. “You look like a professor again.”

“I feel nothing like a professor.”

“No.” Zosia fixed a piece of Carol’s hair. “How long until your next class?”

“It was my only class today.”

“So you were just going to sit in your office.”

“I was going to mark papers.”

“Come get coffee with me. There’s a place two streets over.”

Carol looked at her. “Don’t you have another job?”

“In two hours. I have time.”

“And you want to get coffee,” Carol said. “After all that.”

“I just want to spend one more hour with you before I have to go fix someone else’s pipes. Is that okay?”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s okay.”

Zosia held out her hand. Carol took it and hopped off the desk.

“For what it’s worth,” Carol said, as Zosia unlocked the door, “I had no idea they’d call you when I reported the radiator problem.”

“I know.”

“So this was entirely accidental.”

“Complete coincidence.” Zosia opened the door and held it for her. “Funny how things work out.”

They walked out together, Carol with her notes under her arm, Zosia with her toolbox, and neither of them said anything else about it.

—

The coffee place was two streets over. It was a small place, warm, tables close together. Zosia set her toolbox against the wall and sat across from Carol.

“So,” Zosia said.

“So,” Carol said.

“We just did it in your classroom.”

“I’m very much aware of what we just did.”

“I just wanted to say it out loud.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

Zosia laughed. She picked up her cup. Carol watched her, really watched her, and said:

“Can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“How.” Carol paused. “How are you like that?”

Zosia looked at her. “Like what.”

“Like—” Carol gestured vaguely. “You walk into a room and you just— you look like that. You move like that. You walked into my classroom with a toolbox and you were the most attractive person in the building and you seemed completely unaware of it.”

Zosia stared at her.

“I’m serious,” Carol said. “I was standing there trying to teach about unspoken desire and I kept thinking— she has absolutely no idea what she looks like right now. In those clothes. With that jacket. Looking at me like that across the room.” She shook her head. “I genuinely don’t understand how I ended up with someone who looks like you.”

“Are you kidding me right now,” Zosia said.

“No.”

“Carol.” Zosia put her cup down. “Have you looked at yourself?”

“That’s not the point I’m making.”

“I’m making a different point. Have you looked at yourself.” Zosia leaned forward slightly. “I walked into that classroom and you were standing at the front of the room and I almost put my toolbox down on my own foot. You in that blazer, with that voice, saying things that made twelve people sit up straight.” She stopped. “That’s—”

“That’s just teaching.”

“It’s not just teaching and you know it.” Zosia looked at her. “Kim.”

“What about her?”

“The way she looks at you. Every time you said something she looked at you the way people look at someone they’d follow anywhere.”

“Kim argues about her grades constantly.”

“Because she wants your attention.” Zosia picked her cup back up. “I’m just saying. You have absolutely no idea how you come across.”

Carol was quiet for a moment. “You’re very good at that.”

“At what.”

“Saying things I don’t know what to do with.”

“Is that bad?”

“No. It’s just— I’m usually the one who knows what she’s doing.”

“You always know what you’re doing.” Zosia looked at her steadily. “You’re just also gorgeous and completely unaware of it. It’s a devastating combination.”

Carol looked at her cup. “I keep waiting for you to realise you could do better,” she said.

Zosia looked at her. “Excuse me.”

“You’re twenty-six. You’re— you look like that. You could be with anyone.”

“You’re a published novelist,” Zosia said. “You have a PhD. You teach. You’re the one who could be with anyone.”

“I’m thirty-nine and I don’t even know how to make coffee properly.”

“I’m twenty-six and I fix pipes for a living.”

“You built your own company,” Carol said. “At twenty-six. You have your name on a van.”

“You wrote four books.”

“Three. The fourth isn’t—” Carol put her cup down. “Don’t do that,” she said.

“I’m just being realistic.”

“You’re being an idiot,” Carol said. “Which is unlike you.”

“Is it?”

“You’re kind and you’re funny and you’re the most competent person I’ve ever watched work. Don’t sit across from me and tell me you’re not enough. It’s insulting.”

“I’m not saying I’m not enough. I’m saying you could have someone who—”

“Who what? Has a PhD? I have a PhD. It doesn’t make me interesting to come home to.”

Zosia was quiet.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I still think you—”

“If you say out of my league I’m leaving.”

Zosia smiled. Just slightly. “I was going to say remarkable.”

“Oh.” Carol picked her cup back up. “That’s acceptable.”

They drank their coffee.

Eventually Zosia checked her phone. “I really have to go.”

“I know.”

She stood and picked up her toolbox. She looked at Carol for a moment, still sitting there, cup in hand, a little undone and trying not to show it. She leaned down and kissed her once, soft, her hand at her jaw.

“See you tonight,” she said against her mouth.

“Tonight,” Carol said.

Zosia left. Carol sat with the last of her coffee and the warmth of the room and thought that she still didn’t understand how this was her life now.

She found she didn’t mind at all.

—