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"If I was gay, I'd be gay all the way."
- Mike Piazza, former catcher for the New York Mets, about rumors he was a closeted gay man.
*
Ava wakes up to the covers pulled firmly, and rudely, off of her body. She knows who has done this before she even opens her eyes: Nobody but Deborah would wake her up this way. She squirms and yelps, and presses her bare legs together.
“What time is it? And why do you insist on pulling off the covers when you know I sleep in just a t-shirt and my underwear?”
“Ah, yes. Who could forget your monologue about the pajama-pants rash?” Deborah rolls her eyes.
Ava sighs. She doesn’t bother to cover her legs back up – Deborah has seen more of her skin lately than this. But thinking about their naked dip into a hot tub in Montecito isn’t what she needs right now. She looks toward the window and realizes it’s still dark.
“What time is it?” she asks again.
“It’s two a.m., and I can’t sleep,” Deborah says. “Something is bothering me.”
Ava softens. She wonders if the mass Deborah had removed – even though she insists she will be fine – is weighing on her. She sits up, and pats the bed next to her, and Deborah sits down. Thankfully, Josefina cleaned things up and aired things out while they were gone – Deborah wasn’t wrong, the place had gotten a little funky.
“What’s wrong?” Ava asks gently, finally feeling like her heart rate is back to normal.
“Do you really think I’d be a pillow princess?” she asks, and when Ava looks at her face, she can tell Deborah is wounded by the thought.
Ava barks out a laugh – she can’t help it. It’s just so not what she was expecting to be woken up about in the middle of the night.
“I’m serious!” Deborah protests. “Is that what you think of me? That I’d be bad in bed?”
“Okay, first of all, being a pillow princess doesn’t make someone bad in bed,” Ava says. “It’s just some people’s dynamic.”
“Well, I am not a lazy lay,” Deborah insists.
“Okay, again, kinda problematic, but point taken,” Ava says. “I was mostly just trying to bail you out of the strap conversation – which, by the way, I wouldn’t have had to do if you’d given me some notice and let me prep you on the terminology. But, I hear you loud and clear: if you were gay, you would not be a pillow princess.”
Deborah stares at her, like she’s trying to read Ava’s face. She narrows her eyes.
“You don’t believe me,” Deborah says, indignant. “You don’t think I would be a generous lover?”
“Jesus Christ, a generous lover?” Ava asks, growing genuinely exasperated now. “Is this a romance novel? Who talks like that?”
“Fine. You don’t think I enjoy getting my sexual partners off? Making someone come?” she asks, an eyebrow arched, aiming to get a rise out of Ava and succeeding.
She can’t help but catch that it went from “I would be a generous lover” to “I enjoy getting my sexual partners off” – no theoretical there, no conditional grammar to hide behind. Hearing Deborah talk about sex so specifically makes Ava blush, and she hopes that Deborah doesn’t notice it.
Honestly, with how reserved Deborah was the whole weekend in Montecito – and Ava supposes that reserved is a euphemistic way to put it, because she seemed downright miserable at times – Ava’s surprised Deborah’s not the one blushing. But it’s just the two of them now, no audience, and Deborah has worked herself up into such a fit of righteous indignation over Ava’s supposed defamation of her sexual character that she’s too focused on proving she’s right to be embarrassed.
So Ava covers up her own blush with a laugh.
“I don’t think it really matters, because you’re not gay,” she says. “The point is moot. We’ll never know if you’re a pillow princess because you’re never going to have sex with a woman.”
The truth is, Ava doesn’t really think Deborah would be a pillow princess. But saying as much would require at least tacitly admitting that Ava has thought about Deborah having sex with a woman, and that would make it quite obvious that Ava has thought about Deborah having sex with one particular woman – her. And Ava has thought about it. Quite a lot, though it’s resigned firmly to the world of fantasy, because she has taken Deborah’s word for it that she is straight.
But now, watching how aggravated by all of this Deborah seems to be, Ava isn’t so sure. And she wonders if perhaps she misread Deborah’s behavior in Montecito. She’d been so stiff at first about the kiss, and Ava had really been laying it on thick to fuck with her. But there had been a moment when it almost felt like Deborah had melted into it, before remembering where they were and pulling away. It might also explain Deborah’s wounded reaction to Ava’s flirtations with Monica, which Ava had chalked up to some kind of nonsexual jealousy compounded by Deborah’s abandonment trauma. It’s probably wishful thinking, but maybe there was more to it than that.
In Ava’s thoughts – and really, they are not so much thoughts as they are fantasies – Deborah’s not a pillow princess. She’s too competitive for that; Ava has seen how Deborah likes to watch people squirm in negotiations, or at an antique auction, or at the hostess stand of a restaurant, and she assumes it’s no different in bed. She imagines her shy at first, then bold as she gets comfortable. A bit of a brat, and sure, perhaps even entitled. But certainly willing to reciprocate and make someone – and, of course, again, in these fantasies, the someone is always Ava – come, with her fingers and maybe even her mouth.
Even if Ava can’t quite picture Deborah wearing a strap.
Okay, that last part is definitely a lie – Ava has pictured Deborah wearing a strap, pictured her wearing it and driving it into her, showing off all the stamina she has from those early mornings with her trainer, her natural hair sticking to her sweaty forehead, her breasts bouncing with the effort. So yes, she can picture it, but she’s pretty sure it’s an unrealistic picture.
Anyway. Admitting any of that right now would be admitting a little too much about her own psyche. So she keeps her mouth shut.
“I’ll prove it to you,” Deborah says to her, and that is enough to pull Ava out of her mental rabbit hole.
“What?” Ava asks, incredulous. “Listen, if you’re about to call Marty to have him tell me you’re good in bed, a) I believe you and b) it’s not the same in hetero sex, so spare him the wakeup.”
“No,” Deborah shakes her head. She’s looking at Ava with a focused stare that’s only on her face when she is looking at a prize she is determined to get. “I said I’ll prove it to you.”
Ava can’t help her jaw from dropping.
“Hold on. Are you suggesting –”
“Yes,” Deborah says simply. “I mean, we’ve already played pretend for a whole weekend. You’ve already seen me naked.”
“Deborah,” Ava sighs. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
“Well, what if I want to? I mean, that’s the whole point I’m trying to make. That I’d want to.”
Deborah puts her hand on Ava’s bare thigh, and Ava flinches. Not because the touch is unwelcome, it’s the opposite. But Deborah doesn’t know that – she frowns, and seems to come crashing back down to earth, remembering where she is, and perhaps more importantly, who she is.
She picks her hand back up.
“I’m sorry, of course you don’t want –”
“Don’t apologize,” Ava says, cutting her off, and placing her hand on top of Deborah’s, bringing them both back down onto her thigh. “I just - is this something you would want to do in some hypothetical situation? Or is this something you do want to do, like, for real? Because I’m a real person, Deborah, not just a point to be proved.”
“I know that,” she says softly. “But maybe I’m, you know, curious. I think it could be, I don’t know, fun.”
Even now, even as she’s admitting she wants to get Ava off, there’s a layer of emotional distance there – a forced cavalierness with the maybe and the you know and the I don’t know. The coy smile. The shoulder shrug.
If Ava were a better person, she’d insist they talk about this a whole lot more, at a decent hour of the day, at a time when Deborah wasn’t rattled from a health scare. If Deborah were a better person, she wouldn’t be propositioning Ava – who has long had a pretty transparent crush on her – under the guise of proving a point. But both of them are the people they are; they aren’t better. That’s what makes them work so well together. Neither is going to be responsible enough to say no.
What if it’s her only chance to fuck Deborah Vance? Or be fucked by her? She’s not even really sure what she’s signing up for, but that won’t stop her from adopting a false and unearned bravado.
“All right, princess,” Ava says with a smirk. “Show me what you got.”
It’s like the gunshot at the start of a race. Deborah fucking pounces at her, shoving her down on her bed and its blessedly, freshly changed clean sheets, clearly irritated by being challenged. She kisses her, hard, and if this is payback for Montecito, boy is she happy she pissed Deborah off so thoroughly. Her sharp teeth nip at Ava’s bottom lip, and then her tongue slips inside of her mouth, and Ava is reeling. How the fuck is this actually happening?
She drags her mouth near Ava’s ear. “I told you,” she growls. “I’m not a princess. Pillow or otherwise.”
“Fuck,” Ava says, and she can tell Deborah is gratified by how close to a whimper the noise is.
Deborah winds a hand into the hair at the nape of Ava’s neck and pulls. This time the noise Ava makes is unquestionably a whimper. Normally she’d endeavor to play it at least a little bit cool, but – she’s frankly spent a lot of time fantasizing about being manhandled by her older, powerful, wealthy, straight boss. It was a safe, if somewhat shameful, fantasy because it was never going to happen. And now, here she is, pinned down by Deborah, who clearly isn’t quite so straight after all, considering her right hand has found its way to Ava’s breast, groping her through an oversized vintage Bart Simpson t-shirt she knows Deborah must find deeply distasteful.
“You should’ve known better,” Deborah says, and she looks so determined. Her hand trails lower, cupping her suddenly, a bit harshly, over her simple cotton underwear. Ava gasps at the contact. “When have I ever been afraid of getting my hands dirty?”
At that, Ava moans – an embarrassing sound she really would’ve preferred to keep to herself. Deborah smirks. She’s not wrong – for all of Deborah’s money and fame and the many, many people on her payroll, for all the trappings of her femininity, Deborah isn’t a particularly prissy woman. She’d learned that right away, watching her change the canister on her soda machine, but she’d seen it in practice many times over the years. She just didn’t expect it to extend to touching another woman’s pussy, which is precisely what Deborah does next.
She slips her hand inside of Ava’s panties and brushes over the hair there – Ava hadn’t been kidding about the bush, but she knows that’s no surprise to Deborah after their little foray into the hot tub. Deborah had made a beeline for the water to avoid anyone getting too long a look at her own unobscured body, but not before her eyes had flicked down and then trailed back up Ava’s form, culminating in a little smirk that Ava knew meant she had something she wanted to say and had chosen, wisely, to keep to herself given the setting.
As Deborah’s fingers reach Ava’s wet heat, the touches turn a little more hesitant. Ava thinks of her first time with a woman, and wonders if Deborah is realizing she’s not quite sure what to do. She’s looking at her curiously, and Ava is about to offer her reassurance when Deborah speaks first.
“Why on earth are you still wearing that shirt?” she asks. “I don’t want to fuck Bart Simpson.”
“Okay, fair,” she says, gracelessly pulling it over her head with her one good arm while Deborah’s hand rests on top of her pubic mound and inside her panties. The shirt briefly gets stuck on her head and while she’s temporarily blindfolded by it, she can hear Deborah’s scoff and can perfectly picture her eye roll.
Free of her shirt, her hair mussed all around her, Ava grins. “If I’d known you were going to seduce me I’d have worn a less obnoxious t-shirt to bed.”
“I’m not seducing you,” Deborah says.
“Then what are you doing?” she asks, an eyebrow raised.
“I’m –” she falters, like she thinks better of what she’s about to say, before ultimately deciding to say it anyway. She’s always been willing to commit to the bit, after all. “I’m fucking you.”
As she says it, she carefully slides a single finger inside of Ava. Her hips arch up unconsciously, she utters out a little “oh,” — suddenly feeling inarticulate and, frankly, a little shocked at how easily Deborah has managed to have the upper hand despite not even knowing what strapping or pillow princesses were a few days ago.
“Told you our fighting would come into play in the bedroom,” Ava says, an effort to regain some ground.
Deborah just laughs, and it makes Ava writhe beneath her. It’s such a familiar sound, her laughter, but it’s different to hear it like this.
She takes her fingers away, and Ava whines. But Deborah just tugs at her underwear.
“Off,” she says, and Ava lifts her hips to assist in removing her panties.
And then, Ava is naked and Deborah is still in her silk pajamas – peachy pink with birds on them that Deborah had once told her were swallows, prompting several lewd jokes. She sits up near Ava’s hips, watching her. Ava’s nudity while Deborah is still all buttoned up makes her feel vulnerable, but she doesn’t mind it – it’s pretty hot, honestly. And she gets a little surge of confidence from the way Deborah is quite clearly looking her over, with a gaze that seems to be appreciative, bordering on hungry.
Their eyes meet, and Deborah looks a little caught, and the tiniest bit ashamed.
“I know I have made a lot of jokes about your appearance,” Deborah says. “But you’re actually very pretty, Ava.”
Ava is stunned by this moment of earnest admiration from Deborah, and looks up at her with a big, dopey, starry-eyed grin. Deborah’s hand pets over her cunt again, trailing through her pubic hair.
“The bush is a bit much, though,” Deborah deadpans, and Ava laughs. Balance is restored in the universe. “They sell electric trimmers, you know.”
“Is that what you use?” Ava asks, eyebrows raised.
“Behave yourself and maybe you’ll get to find out,” Deborah says, and Ava thrills at the prospect of getting to reciprocate.
And then Deborah’s fingers delve between Ava’s labia once again, trailing through her wetness, exploring externally this time, spreading her slick around. She finds her clit, and rubs it softly with the pad of a finger.
“You’re so wet,” she observes. “Do you like the way I’m touching you?”
“Yes,” she sighs.
And it’s true, she does like it. Deborah’s fingers are careful but firm. She’s mindful of her nails. She’s sitting up while Ava is lying down, fully dressed while Ava is nude, looking down at her, a bit removed, a bit haughty, a bit above it all, and there’s something about all of it that feeds in to every one of Ava’s fucked-up fantasies borne out of their lopsided power dynamic in a way that really does it for her.
“Have you thought about this before?” Deborah asks her, as if she could read Ava’s mind. “The two of us, together like this,” she adds, as if that clarification were necessary.
Ava nods and bites her bottom lip, embarrassed. “I have,” she admits, and then she gasps as Deborah’s finger leaves her clit to slip inside of her, in and out, and then a second back in with the first, and Ava’s hips rise. “Have you?”
Deborah blushes, and Ava has her answer. But Deborah deigns to provide it verbally as well.
“I have,” she says, simply.
Their eyes meet, and Ava is struck by the fact that this is real, this is happening, this is Deborah – not some fantasy version of her, not some daydream about her emotionally and physically unavailable boss fucking her. This is her best friend.
The distance between them suddenly feels too far.
“Wait,” Ave breathes out, and Deborah stills her fingers, a worried look on her face. “Um, could you,” she begins, stumbling over the request.
“What do you want, honey?” Deborah asks, and unlike so many of her fantasies, there’s no bite to it — she’s soft, eager to get it right, to care for her.
”Come closer to me, please?” she manages to say. “Like, hold me? While you touch me.”
Deborah smiles at her and nods without a word, taking her hand away from Ava’s pussy to lie down beside her, so they’re face to face.
“Hi,” Ava says, and it reminds her of her dream, back when they were still getting to know one another.
“Hey,” Deborah says.
She touches Ava again – careful, gentle caresses through her wetness, getting used to the new angle, watching her face, and Ava is overwhelmed to be the center of Deborah’s attention, to see this woman’s relentless focus and perfectionism directed solely at her. Again, she enters Ava with her fingers, and the feeling of being watched so intensely by someone she cares so much about as she hurtles toward an orgasm becomes too much, so Ava kisses her. Deborah makes a surprised little sound but returns the kiss, her hand faltering for just a moment before resuming its rhythm.
The pleasure builds and builds. Ava begins rocking her hips. She is about to suggest to Deborah that she use her thumb to touch her clit while she’s fucking her with her fingers, but Deborah figures it out on her own – always an over-achiever. Ava moans through their kiss. Deborah pulls back and grins at her, clearly quite pleased with herself.
”Good?” she asks.
“So good,” Ava replies.
“Then admit it,” Deborah says, that grin still on her face, and Ava is a too far gone to know what the fuck she’s trying to get her to admit.
“Admit what?”
“That I’m not a pillow princess.”
“Oh my god, that is what you’re thinking about right now?” Ava asks, disbelief dripping into the words, even as she feels herself dripping onto the sheets.
Deborah slows the movements of her fingers.
“I could stop, you know,” she says, her lips shifting from that wicked little grin to a pout that Ava finds absurdly, annoyingly endearing.
“Please don’t stop.”
“Well, I think that’s up to you,” Deborah says. “Tell me what I want to hear.”
Her fingers stop moving entirely, and Ava is both annoyed and delighted that Deborah’s not all soft and sweet when it comes to this – to realize she was right about Deborah’s fondness for making people squirm.
“Okay, okay,” Ava says. “You’re not a pillow princess, now would you please make me come?”
Deborah’s fingers start moving again, and now her smile is gentle, caring.
“God, you really want it, don’t you?” she asks softly, and it’s not really said with intent to mock. She seems impressed, maybe even proud of Ava’s open desire for her, proud of herself for engendering it. She isn’t a pillow princess, clearly, but she’s also not quite as Ava has ever imagined her, and of course she isn’t, because Deborah is always proving herself to be more complicated than people assume of her.
“I do,” Ava answers her question. “I want it so bad, Deborah, please.”
Deborah laughs softly. “You’re cute when you want something,” she admits. “And I’ll never admit it outside of this bed, but I like spoiling you.”
The confession sends a jolt through her body. If she was close before, she’s on the razor’s edge now, working her hips in time with Deborah fingers, staring at this beautiful, strange, unpredictable woman she has been orbiting for the last several years.
“Go ahead, honey,” Deborah says. “I wanna see what you look like when you come.”
Ava’s always been (mostly) good at doing what Deborah tells her. She comes with a high-pitched cry of surprise at Deborah’s words – simultaneously so hot and so sweet and so revealing. Deborah wants to know what she looks like when she comes. Of course that would be enough to set her off. Deborah is watching her intently, and in the midst of what is truly a life-altering orgasm, Ava tries to read the expression on her face: satisfied and smug and she swears also a bit aroused, but that’s really all she can register before the pleasure fully takes over and shuts off her brain.
When Ava’s able to form coherent thoughts again, she realizes that she is laughing, overjoyed. Deborah is carefully withdrawing her fingers, and she starts laughing, too. Of course they’re laughing. That was their first form of shared intimacy; why wouldn’t they retreat into the safety of it now that they’ve broken this new barrier together?
“Okay, definitely not a pillow princess,” Ava says, still feeling a bit giddy. “God, that was so hot. You were annoyingly good for a first-timer.”
Deborah shrugs. “Beginner’s luck. Plus, I’m good at everything,” she says with a smirk.
“Especially being humble.”
“Ha! Well, don’t act so surprised. Did you think I’d be bad?” Deborah asks. “Or were you worried I was really going to leave you hanging when I stopped?”
Ava considers her response for only a moment.
“I knew you’d take care of me,” she says.
Deborah smiles. “I always get there eventually, honey.”
It’s true. Maybe in the past, Deborah might have left her hanging – the Deborah she was with in Singapore, who routinely spilled martinis and careless words when she was too drunk and then showed up the next morning like it had never happened; or the Deborah she had blackmailed, who lashed out like a cornered animal refusing to be put into a cage. Those Deborahs could have balked mid-way through and played it all off as some joke, a dare gone too far, a game won.
But since they’ve come home, Deborah has been so kind to her, so generous, so caring, so open. The morning of her birthday, she’d gifted her a Rolex like it was nothing – saying Ava ought to have something else to wear on occasions her dad’s gold watch is too precious to risk. As if a $40,000 timepiece was a typical backup option to her dad’s department store special.
But what had meant the most was Deborah – after throwing her a lavish and thoughtful birthday party – admitting that Ava was her best friend, to hear her say so plainly that their bond, their affection, was truly shared. I was as if Singapore had been the last gasp of her emotional unavailability – and when it hadn’t worked, she’d given up on pushing Ava away. That’s why it had hurt so much when she thought it was happening again when Deborah lied to her about the mass.
She thinks of Kelly Kilpatrick telling her that for someone like Deborah, letting her guard down is the opposite of safety. Yet Deborah has done it for her. Over and over again, even when sometimes it feels like one step forward and two steps back – Deborah really does always get there eventually.
“Hey, I’m sorry for being such a dick in Montecito,” Ava says softly, as they lie together, this time so much happier than when they shared that bed in the cream room. “I wouldn’t have teased you and put you on the spot like that if I had known – it’s funny if you’re straight, but it’s pretty cruel if you’re not.”
“Who says I’m not straight?” Deborah bristles.
Ava could get annoyed by this insane reaction, but she doesn’t even bother. Growth.
“You just fingered me to completion, babe,” she says. “Don’t pretend that was just some kind of bit.”
“Fingered you to completion?” Deborah scoffs. “That’s a worse turn of phrase than ‘generous lover.’”
“Okay. Jerked me off? Fucked me with your fingers? Made me come? Any of those work better for you?”
“Don’t be vulgar,” she scolds.
“That’s not vulgar,” Ava says.
She reaches for Deborah’s hand, which has just been sort of dangling awkwardly as if Deborah doesn’t know what to do with it after having touched Ava’s pussy, and sucks her fingers into her mouth, tasting herself on them. Deborah gasps, and Ava maintains eye contact the entire time – watching the other woman’s pupils dilate. She really puts on a show, hollowing out her cheeks, taking Deborah’s (surprisingly long) fingers deep into her mouth.
After she licks the digits clean, Ava adds: “That was vulgar. And you liked it.”
Deborah rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”
Ava’s not particularly interested in pressing Deborah to put a label on her sexuality – she’d rather put her mouth on Deborah’s pussy first. But she still can’t resist pushing her a little more.
“I’m just saying, I have, unfortunately, slept with a couple of straight girls. And you seem pretty into this for a straight girl,” Ava says.
“I’m hardly a girl, Ava.”
“I notice you didn’t address the straight part of what I said.”
“I’m not interested in labels,” Deborah says, feigning nonchalance.
“I mean, you were so interested in the pillow princess label and not having it applied to you that you fucked me over it, but we can revisit this another time,” Ava says.
“Thank you,” Deborah says, and she seems to sincerely mean it, to be relieved to end that line of conversation. Ava gets it.
She loves Deborah’s strength, her power – it’s a lot of what attracted Ava to her in the first place – but she wants more of Deborah’s vulnerability, too. She craves it, and what’s more vulnerable than doing what Ava just did, and letting someone else see you fall apart?
So Ava kisses her again, soft at first before pressing harder against her, and then straddling her, prompting a surprised sound from Deborah. She breaks away from Deborah’s mouth to begin unbuttoning her pajama top, a bit clumsy with her cast.
“Oh,” Deborah says, as if this development is totally unexpected.
“Your turn,” Ava says. “Or my turn, depending on how you look at it.”
Deborah bites her bottom lip, and looks a little uneasy. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to,” she says.
“What? Of course I do,” Ava says. “Oh my god, wait, do you think I’m a pillow princess?”
“Ha! Oh honey, no. I’ve never met anyone more eager to please than you,” she says, trailing her hand up Ava’s torso gently. Being so thoroughly seen makes Ava feel dizzy.
“Okay, rude; but kind of hot how you can see right through me like that,” she says, still atop Deborah. “So why do you think I wouldn’t want to do this?”
“You seemed pretty interested in Monica,” Deborah says, clearly making an effort to sound unaffected about it all, and not succeeding. “I figured maybe I’m not your type.”
It makes Ava feel awful about flirting with Monica, which really isn’t fair considering Deborah should never have put her in that position in the first place. Still, Deborah has gone way out of her comfort zone tonight, so Ava moves quickly to reassure her.
“Not my type?” Ava asks, incredulous. “D, you said it yourself, I’m obsessed with you. To the degree that it has torpedoed every attempt I’ve made at a relationship since the day we met. Except the magician, he fucked that up on his own.”
Deborah sighs. “I guess I just worry it won’t be how you imagine it will.”
“Okay, I’m sorry, I’m the one who knows for sure I like women, so I think it’ll be exactly like I imagine, except only better, because it’s real.”
“My body’s not going to look like Monica’s, Ava. I’m much older than anyone you’ve slept with,” she says.
“I don’t care,” Ava says, folding herself back down over Deborah, ignoring any discomfort in her bad arm, kissing at Deborah’s neck persistently. “I want your body exactly the way it is, and I have for a very long time. The only reason I had eyes for anyone else this weekend is because you insisted you were straight.”
“Your arm’s out of commission,” Deborah tries one last-ditch excuse.
“It’d be nice to have in play, but I don’t need it,” Ava assures her.
She once again moves to unbutton Deborah’s shirt, and this time, Deborah doesn’t stop her. Still, Ava wants to be careful.
“Okay?” she asks, when she gets to the button that’ll allow her to see Deborah’s breasts.
“Okay,” Deborah says, with a shy smile that cracks Ava’s heart open.
She unbuttons the entire shirt before opening it to bare Deborah’s chest — she’d been half worried Deborah would sleep in a bra, but is pleased to discover she does not. Her breasts are beautiful, full, firm.
“Fuck,” Ava says appreciatively. “You are so beautiful, Deborah. I’m going to show you how beautiful you are.”
She brings a hand to one breast and her mouth to the other, kissing softly, then licking with firm little flicks, then sucking and pinching as Deborah gives her positive feedback for the increased sensation, arching up, a hand tangling in her hair.
“That’s good, honey,” Deborah says. “So good.”
And Deborah was right — Ava is eager to please, and the praise makes her whine and redouble her efforts. She wants to kiss every inch of Deborah’s beautiful skin. It is more slack, more lined than Ava’s; but it’s also soft, and golden, and perfect. She treats every little perceived imperfection, old scars, freckles, the wrinkles in her cleavage, with nothing other than worship. Then, on Deborah’s right breast, she notices a scar — newer, and she realizes this one isn’t from plastic surgery, but from the mass she had removed. It’s healed, so Ava dares to lick across the faint pink line of it, peering up at Deborah to see the emotional look on her face.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Ava murmurs into her skin. “And that you told me.”
Deborah nods, and blinks away a tear. “Me too.”
She moves down Deborah’s body, over her stomach, still looking up at Deborah. As she gets lower, Deborah looks away, and Ava gathers this is perhaps a part of her body she doesn’t quite love having on display. But Ava is reverent anyway, placing soft kisses and licks all the way down to Deborah’s silk pajama pants. She grips the waistband and waits for Deborah to look at her; when she does, she gives her a questioning look and Deborah nods her approval. That’s all Ava needs to drag her pants down a bit and then to reach for her underwear.
“These too?” Ava asks.
“Yeah, okay,” Deborah breathes.
Ava pulls them down together, over Deborah’s endlessly long legs. That guy in the focus group at Late Night had been right — she’s got great legs and Ava certainly didn’t mind seeing more of them on set once they’d stopped fighting. And who is she kidding, she was still checking Deborah out even when they were engaged in psychological warfare with one another.
“I wish you could’ve seen me in my prime,” Deborah sighs. “Would’ve given Monica a run for her money.”
“You are in your prime,” Ava insists, gently spreading Deborah’s legs, settling between them and kissing her upper thighs. “You’re better, and sexier, and funnier, and smarter than ever.”
“But I do know what you mean,” Ava continues. “I wish every version of me could know every version of you. I’m not sure if that’s really creepy or really romantic.”
“It’s both,” Deborah sighs.
She stops to really take in the sight before her. It looks like Deborah does use an electric trimmer, to compliment what seems to be a regularly scheduled bikini wax. The hair over her mound is short and neat and darker than the grey that comes in at Deborah’s roots when she’s due at the hair salon, and Ava feels privileged to have seen both colors, to know her so intimately.
“Are you just going to sit there?” Deborah finally asks her.
Ava grins up at her, spreads her labia with her thumbs, and drags her tongue through Deborah’s wetness. It’s less abundant than she might expect from someone younger – than what’s between her own legs for sure – but it’s there and it’s undeniable that Deborah is aroused by what they’re doing. Aroused by her. It’s thrilling.
“Oh,” Deborah says, a happy little sound that Ava decides she would like to hear every day for eternity.
She laps at Deborah, languid and lazy strokes of her tongue, coaxing more wetness from within her, taking her time. It borders on teasing, but it isn’t, not really – it’s Ava enjoying herself, devoting herself, exploring, reveling in finally having this opportunity she thought would never come. When she notices Deborah’s hips shifting and her breath hitching, she becomes more focused – slipping her stiffened tongue up inside of her, drawing out another little gasp Ava wishes she could save as a voice memo and listen to each night before bed. But maybe she’ll get to hear it live every night, if she’s lucky. Then she licks up to Deborah’s clit and lavishes it with her tongue, before suckling gently.
Normally, she’d use her hand, too – a finger inside of Deborah, then two. Another reason to hate that stupid fucking driverless car: first her boba, and now this. But Deborah doesn’t seem to be complaining. In fact, despite her brief display of shyness before, she’s moving pretty insistently against Ava’s face, which is hot. Looking up at her, she sees that Deborah is staring back down at her, a bit of disbelief on her face, like she can’t quite believe the scene playing out before her. Ava gets it. She can’t quite believe it either. After their eyes lock, Deborah lets out the start of a moan that she quickly bites back. It prompts Ava to pull her mouth away just briefly.
“Don’t be quiet, doll,” she says, and she doesn’t even get an eyeroll at the pet name. “I wanna hear you.”
Deborah lets out a half-laugh, half-sigh sound, incredulous, but with a smile on her face. She lets her head flop back against the bed, no longer looking into Ava’s eyes, and Ava takes that as her cue to return to Deborah’s pussy, right where she left off. This time, Deborah lets herself make the noise – she moans, and Ava hums gratefully against her clit in response, and Deborah moans again, and Ava thinks she’d like to live forever in this little feedback loop of pleasure they’re creating.
It’s not much longer until Deborah’s hips buck against her face, and Ava steals a glance up her long, lean body to see her head thrown back, eyes closed, her face awash in pleasure as she comes with a low moan.
When Deborah’s entire body seems to relax, Ava drags her mouth away, pressing soft kisses across Deborah’s pelvis, onto her strong thighs, until she hears an impatient sound from above her.
“Would you get back up here?” Deborah asks her.
Ava grins and she does, wiping her mouth on her good arm, the lewd gesture of it drawing an eye roll from Deborah. Nonetheless, she pats the bed beside her, and arm outstretched, and Ava is bowled over at the realization that Deborah wants to cuddle.
“This is nice,” Ava says as she settles into being the little spoon, though the word feels much too small to adequately capture just how good all of this feels right now.
Deborah hums in agreement. “Very nice,” Deborah says.
“Just wait til you see what I can do when both hands are in play,” Ava says, daring to imply they’ll do this again. Because god, now that they’ve done it once, Ava doesn’t think she can ever stop.
If she was bracing for rejection from Deborah, it does not come.
“I look forward to it,” Deborah says simply.
“Yeah?” Ava asks — and it’s so needy, but she doesn’t care.
“Yeah, honey,” she says.
“So you’d want to, like, do this again?”
If she thought the yeah? was needy, this is next-level. But Deborah has the decorum not to point it out.
“Of course,” she says simply. “I wouldn’t have done it once if it wasn’t something I thought I’d want to do again. You were right — you’re not a point to be proved. You’re my best friend.”
Ava feels her eyes well with tears, happy tears, and she’s desperate to see Deborah’s face, but she resists the urge to turn and look at her — figuring maybe it’s easier to talk about this kind of stuff when they’re not eye-to-eye.
“You’re my best friend, too,” she says happily.
It’s quiet for a while, before Ava breaks the silence with: “I do feel like I should give you that thousand bucks back.”
Deborah cackles at that. Then, Ava feels her warm breath against her ear.
“What’s the matter?” she asks, running a possessive hand down Ava’s flank. “You don’t like being bought and paid for?”
Ava shivers and feels herself get wet all over again as Deborah snickers in her ear.
“God, you’re so easy,” she says happily.
Ava is grinning like a fool. “Again, your ability to read me like a book is a little unnerving but very hot.”
They both laugh. Ava always worried it would feel strange, or awkward, if they ever did this — that’s the way it felt when they were putting on a show in Montecito, honestly. But now, when it’s for real, it’s so easy. It’s like so much of their relationship these days: simple and natural and sweet and loving, a hard-won reprieve after their years of push-and-pull.
“God, I can’t believe us fake-dating led to us real-fucking,” Ava says. “This is like, a classic fanfiction trope.”
“I don’t know what any of that is,” Deborah says, unbothered. “You know, I’m not ready to label anything, but I do think maybe Kelly saw something in me that I wasn’t willing to see – or was trying not to see. Maybe you did, too, even all the way back on the cruise.”
Ava considers this.
“Were you telling me the truth back then? That you had never considered being with a woman?”
“I was,” Deborah says, and Ava’s about to push her gently, but Deborah keeps talking. “Before you, I really hadn’t ever thought about it. I had never felt this way.”
“You’d never felt this way about another woman, you mean?”
“I’ve never felt this way about anyone, Ava,” Deborah says simply.
It takes her breath away, in large part because of how true it is for her, too. She can’t stand not seeing Deborah’s face anymore, so she rolls over to face her. Every movement is awkward with her stupid cast, but she doesn’t care. Deborah doesn’t shy away from her gaze, and Ava’s relieved.
“I’ve never felt like this about anyone, either,” Ava says.
Even if they’d never had sex, if they’d never become more than friends, it would be true – for years, Deborah has occupied a place in her life nobody else ever could. Nothing will compare to the way they seem to understand one another, to hurt one another, to love one another.
“This is much better than going to bed angry,” Deborah says. “But I think I’d prefer to sleep in my bedroom.”
Ava deflates a little. She’d been hoping to cuddle all night. But knowing Deborah wants to do this again is enough for her. She thinks back, once again, to Kelly telling her over coffee that the people we love are often fundamentally different than us. That once she understood that, they’d have much deeper, much more intense orgasms and – wow, hey, she was right about that part, after all.
“Oh, okay,” is what she manages to get out of her mouth. “Guess I’ll see you in the morning?”
Deborah tuts at her and rolls her eyes. “Don’t look so pathetic. I meant I’d prefer both of us to sleep in my bedroom. You’re invited,” she says, the last words just slipping off her tongue with a shrug. “As long as you wash your face first.”
Ava feels her mouth bloom into a grin.
“You’re spoiling me, you know.”
Deborah sighs, getting up to put on her pajamas. “I know,” she says sweetly, getting out of the bed. “I’m not eating your ass, though.”
Ava barks out a laugh.
“It’s okay, you can work your way up to that, babe.”
“I most certainly will not,” Deborah scoffs. “But, eating your pussy is on the table.”
“Wait, really?” Ava says, scrambling so excitedly to get out of bed and follow Deborah that she almost faceplants.
Deborah just throws Ava’s t-shirt at her, hitting her square in the face with it.
“I know,” Deborah says indulgently. “I can’t really believe it, either.”
As they laugh on their way to the master bedroom, Ava decides she’s going to send Kelly Kilpatrick a thank-you note. She’ll write it out by hand, on the fancy cardstock Deborah keeps around the house:
Thanks for the advice over coffee. You were right about the orgasms. - Ava