Between a Rock and a Hard Place

"Your clothes are stinking up the place. Take them off."

They did. The living-room smelled like a locker room.

"Ok, I'm sorry, wait." Kate took it off herself, then her pants and handed them to her.

Now Lenore had her hand on the hem of her shirt.

They stared at each other.

"You didn't want to go get your stuff," Lenore said. "Get used to hang around in the buff."

"Fine." Kate peeled off her shirt. Meanwhile Lenore had peeled off her socks.

And now her fingers were hooked under the waistband of her panties.

"Really?"

Can I? Lenore's eyes replied.

There was a long silence that said, Of course you can, you idiot. But as Lenore faltered, Kate unhooked her bra defiantly and put it on the top of her head like a hat.

Lenore chortled and finally pulled the underwear down, avoiding her skin as much as possible.

They could hear each other's heart beating loud, and fast.

She gathered all the clothes in a heap and went to put it in the dirty laundry basket.

She went back with a blanket, which she wrapped around them both in a wide flapping motion as she sat next to Kate.

She cradled her in her arms, pressed pecks on her lips. Still shy and unnatural.

She placed her hands on her back, nothing more.

Kate had instinctively taken a fetal position in the embrace. She let herself get cuddled. Even when Lenore got discreetly emotional and wetted her scalp of her tears. She was crying for her troubles, crying at how astounding the body of a woman felt, and crying that this beauty could have power over said troubles.

The gaze, when theirs met, was where the intensity was. Because one of them was naked under this blanket. Because they--these two kids--didn't know what they were doing anymore.

"So..." Lenore tried at all cost to lighten up her tone. "Tell me everything."

"About?"

"The lesbian life."

"Oh, that... Why d'you wanna know?" Kate asked sarcastically.

"To be a better storyteller."

"Of course... To be fair, it's not really any different from straight people. The power struggle is a little different but it's still power struggle."

Lenore moved a hand to Kate's feet. She caressed them with no hurry, no strain, just made a mental map of them.

She had never been a foot fetishist but she was trying to understand how exactly she loved Kate Toynbee and thus this body part was becoming as sensual as anything else to her. As interesting. Flaws included. Averageness included.

She said, "I always loved you because you never asked me if I experimented in college."

"Did you?"

"I... I had a bad experience once..."

"What happened?"

"I just...I wanted to have fun. I wanted to be this new person. And... It got...too real." It got impossible to share.

"You mean it was like in the movies?"

"What do you mean?"

"Porn made it weird. It's weird. I mean, it's so weird when you think about it. Cause a lot of the shit you see in porn comes from the queer community, you see, like fisting and squirting and...well, whatever... But as soon as porn comes and grinds it in, it just makes everything so... so... I dunno."

Lenore couldn't find the right word either.

She asked, "So how do you make love?"

"With no fake nails," Kate grimaced.

Lenore moved on to her hands and touched her bitten fingernails.

Kate went on: "We don't make love. The dyke life is a permanent dyke orgy."

"Please..."

"Just kidding. Well it kind of is actually, we just don't like people knowing about it."

"You didn't have sex last Saturday because you're in love with me?"

Kate was floored by the blunt question.

But she took it: "Yes."

"No hook-ups at the pizza place?"

"No. No one wants a fucking loser, Lena. Straight or gay."

"You're not a loser. Don't play that with me."

"I'm sorry. It's just...banter."

"You survived two years at Deep Green, it counts on a resume. You'll find something. Life is long."

"You think so?"

"You don't?"

"I... I dunno. That's a weird concept."

"When you left the club the other night, it's because you were jealous of...the two who shall not be named?"

"Yes."

"Why were you jealous? I wasn't a lesbian back then."

Kate shrugged.

"Have you ever been in love before?" Lenore asked.

Another shrug. "I discovered I've never been until you."

Lenore cupped her two hands onto her breasts. Another mental map. She felt them slowly. The gesture was so peculiar she was almost surprised when she felt the nipples react to her touch.

"Did you become this "new person" after your bad experience?" Kate had air-quoted with her voice.

"I hope so."

Lenore took her own socks off and their bare toes touched.

"I love you, Kathryn."

Kate looked up at her. "Lenore." Her voice wavered, like she had said something important. Her tears started to stream down. "Lena. I didn't have sex since I met you. And I make love like I wanna get married. Since it's legal now."

Lenore opened her mouth to speak but Kate wasn't finished: "And... I... I'm going through some shit right now."

What exactly, she didn't tell. It was too big, even for the tight, mighty skin fortress they had built around them.

Lenore walled it shut with her arms and they stayed like this for a while.

*****

When she thought it was the right time, Lenore re-opened the fortress and murmured:

"I think I am this new person."

"You think so?" Kate sniffled, exhausted.

"I think I'm ready to love again."

This time Kate kissed her. "Does it mean I can ask you about Brian?"

Kate waited patiently, until Lenore finally nodded.

"Not today though. It's enough pain for a Saturday."

Lenore raised and closed up the blanket above their heads.

In the darkness she saw no ghosts. Only her friend in silhouette.

Whom she kissed blindly.

She asked her to hold the blanket and began taking off her clothes.

It went so messy in their cramped, flimsy, improved tent they had to laugh. Even after Lenore was naked and they lay down together in what was supposed to be the most solemn moment of their lives. The couch was too small, they rolled onto the floor, giggling, the blanket spread open and they could now see as well as feel.

Lenore ran her hands everywhere she saw. She wanted to smile. She wanted to cry but even in her state she knew it would have been too fucking weird.

"What are you doing?" Kate asked, out of breath.

"I want something normal for once in my life."

"But it's not. We're friends."

She was right. And also they realized nothing was ever normal in life. Only took them twenty-three years.

"I want..." Lenore fumbled.

They stopped moving.

"I want..."

"Oh my God, you're gonna say a little poem, aren't you?"

They became only eyes. And ears. And voice.

"I wanna...hold you when you're cold in the winter. I wanna have your smell on my clothes. I want to see you brush your teeth. I wanna see you being jealous cause I eyed a guy's ass. I wanna see you wink at me cause we eyed the same girl's ass. I wanna hear the sound of your voice when you come. I wanna adjust my rear-view mirror cause you used my car. I want to call you from across the house just for the pleasure of saying your name. I wanna ask you 'What do you wanna eat tonight?' for the 5000th time. I want to be bored with you. I wanna beat your punkass at Mario Kart. I wann--"

"So you really are an author."

"And I want you to keep the post-irony or whatever the fuck to a minimum and love me."

She brushed her hand down her side, to her buttocks, to her thighs, inside them, through her pubes and she cupped her vagina.

"You're skipping steps, Lena."

"I'm so scared," she exhaled.

"It's because we haven't kissed."

So they did. And it made things a little normal.

Kate had a normal mouth, not the mouth of an insect. Lenore never doubted it, but when she caressed her tongue with her tongue, it confirmed it in a warm release of happiness. And she knew that somehow she might not be lying for very long, maybe she could fall in love with her friend, maybe she always was, maybe she never lied. All the possibilities were inside her. And life was long. And she would die in two days.

So they made love on the floor.

Because on her bed was the suggestion box.

And because they didn't have time. They made love.

Clumsy and slow and hesitant and haltingly, it still worked. They made a love that didn't stop whenever they would cum. A love that wouldn't count down. Love that didn't allow the feeble concept of positions and oral sex because it would have taken their skin too far apart from one another. Perhaps because it was their first time. Perhaps because it was the love of two people with terror brooding inside of them. And pain and misery.

*****

Only after this, did they begin to face the reality of a couple. The What now?, the specialization, the long times to cross.

The night was falling around the couch. The light, the air and their voices were as soft as velvet:

"Kate?"

"Yea?..."

"Can you...promise me you won't make fun of me?"

Kate raised her head from their snug embrace in the blanket. "You serious?"

"Promise."

"I can't promise that if you wanna be my girlfriend."

"Come on."

"Ok. Sure, I promise."

"I wanna ask you something weird."

"No shit."

"Oh my God, I'm gonna make it weird."

"What?"

"Could you..." Her voice wasn't laughing anymore. Kind of the opposite. "Could you touch my...my butthole?"

Kate swallowed back a What? and let out a snicker that said, That's it? "Come here."

Their bodies had never left each other but somehow they got even closer. Kate cupped her buttcheeks. "And don't ever use the word butthole ever again. You're not 12."

"I don't wanna use crude words with you."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. It just doesn't feel right."

"So you want me to touch your anus, not your asshole."

"Exactly," Lenore chuckled.

"Just touch it?"

"Yes. And..." again her voice wasn't chuckling anymore, "don't ask me why. Please."

"I didn't intend to." She caressed her buttocks, took her time, and eventually stopped when her fingers rested onto the soft anus.

She fondled it without any intention of kinkiness. It wasn't sexual. Even if it was. And Lenore's breathing actually slowed down. The good tension in their muscles calmed down for this moment.

Kate explored every detail of and around the puckered hole. She was caressing it like she would caress the back of Lenore's hand on a lazy afternoon watching TV, only instead of the most visible part of the human body, against her fingertips was the most intimate, the most vulnerable part of her friend; and within her fingertips was a lot of peace.

Peace doesn't need questions. She kept on caressing Lenore. Slowly. Imperceptibly.

"Kate, you'll say I'm skipping steps again but... I love you."

"And I don't say I love you on the first date."

They kissed. A little smoother than a few hours earlier.

It was Kate's turn to hesitate.

"What?" Lenore asked when she noticed.

"I promise you this is not a question. I just want you to know: I'm ok with anal sex. I'm not disgusted or anything. If you wanna have it, we--"

Kate didn't finish because Lenore broke eye contact.

They didn't move for another while, never broke skin contact. They forgot one was touching the other's anus. They forgot how special it was and instead they made it theirs. Again: the lazy afternoon watching TV.

"What about you?" Lenore asked later. "Anything you like to do that is weird and awkward? You said squirting is a lesbian thing originally?"

"It's a circus act. Like that ping-pong ball trick they do in Thailand." Kate kissed her on the forehead and rolled over, bringing a lot of the blanket with her. Also abandoning her buttcrack duty.

Lenore snickered. "Oh so I'm just gonna assume you can't."

"Shut up. Hey, wait a minute. You want to write porn, don't you? I got it now."

"I can."

"Write porn?"

"No, um..."

"What then?"

"I can-- um..."

"Ah. Can't even say it... Well, good for you."

Lenore bigspooned Kate. She reached around her and slid her fingers along her nymphs. Then inside, where it was wet.

"You won't make me squirt," Kate said. "I tried. I can't. But it's ok, I won't lose sleep over it."

"Can I still try?"

"So is that it? you just wanna give me a tutorial?" Kate smiled. And shuddered as a finger was creeping inside her: "You're still skipping steps--oh my God, don't go straight for my G-spot!"

"Sorry."

Kate put her own finger inside herself and guided Lenore's. "It's here. It's all swollen because of you."

They pressed on it together and Kate tried to suppress a slight gasp.

"It doesn't even feel that good to be honest," Lenore said. "But I think... I find it beautiful in a way." Her breathing sharpened. "You're beautiful."

Kate turned back and they reunited.

Lenore put two fingers inside Kate. She gave up on focusing on her G-spot and caressed her everywhere. Kissed her too. Licked her nipples. Licked her tongue. Breathed in her hair. Gripped her toes with her toes.

She explained and demonstrated at the same time, "You have to rub your G-spot like you're really not afraid to make it happen."

Kate was moaning more overtly, blowing whispery uh-huhs of confirmation in her neck. Her hips were rolling back and forth.

"Once you feel it gets really squishy you push out your fingers and rub your clit like that." Lenore made Kate gasp.

"Len you're gonna make me cum."

Lenore repeated words and fingers: "You rub there. Like you don't have a care in the world."

"Mhmmmmh..."

"And you let it, just like that beautiful voice you have right now."

Kate pushed out her fingers, Lenore rushed them to her clit and rubbed it in a circle until they were both moaning together. Until they stopped moaning together.

Kate had not squirted, of course, but it hadn't been the point and they were too busy celebrating her orgasm with a long, deep kiss anyway. One that was easy and comfortable.

Suddenly, Kate felt Lenore's chest vibrating inside her mouth, groaning softly and she heard a wet noise coming from Lenore's crotch, drops hitting the blanket and the couch.

Lenore was touching herself with the same two fingers that had made Kate cum and she had made a mess.

They giggled and kissed and giggled.

They were ready to love each other.

*****

They could have spent the rest of the night on a wet couch but didn't.

Lenore could have spent the night out of her bedroom but they did not.

It's Kate who moved the suggestion box from the bed so they could get in and eat their second order of sushi on it and watch Star Wars. The good ones. Lenore insisted.

Kate was asleep before the Battle of Yavin.

Lenore could have never imagined seeing Kate Toynbee tired.

*****

Sunday (two days)

On Sunday morning, they woke up together and against each other. They were still naked and their skin was so soft and so warm.

They made love a few more indistinguishable times, resuming from where they had left a sweet eternity ago. They did a 69 that wasn't a position, it was their true form. Fused. Their mouths only withdrew from it to exhale orgasms. The hot breath on their sexes was still a caress in its own way.

Kate eventually broke the balance to slither back against Lenore and share with her the few drops of squirt she had caught in her mouth.

Their ravenous sharing abated down to a deep French kiss.

Then a kiss, assured and full of both of their feelings for each other.

Then pecks, playful, still not ready to acknowledge how their friendship had turned, despite it being in plain sunlit sight.

They did some laundry. Their clothes and the bedsheets.

Lenore lent some clothes to Kate because somehow they thought staying naked would be unreasonable.

Then they had hours to fill.

Kate pushed her to try and make that long overdue book haul video. She pushed her to write a little. But it didn't work.

"So your turn then," she asked. "Tell me about the writer experience."

"What do you wanna know?"

"Everything. What's the gift of creativity like?"

"It's a bitch."

For once Kate was taken aback by the taste of her own medicine.

"O...kayy..."

"But here's a secret." Lenore walked to her room and came back from it holding a Jack Skellington keychain. She put the tiny puppet into Kate's hand. "It's called a literary device."

"I don't get it."

"You put it somewhere visible, like a zipper of your backpack, so the audience when they see it, they know you're mine."

"I fuckin' knew it."

"What?"

"That you were one of these girls in high school."

It was their last laugh. But it was good.

Soon after, Lenore called almost everyone she knew, to hear their voices. Her parents took the longest.

Kate asked her the reason of all that. Asked her why she looked so scared all the time.

Talking about witches would damage any bond. Even one as hard to grasp as friend turned lover.

And since Kate had never been stupid, she asked about Jill and Becky.

From there the light conversations of Sundays caught on the deadweight of their inability to tell the truth. Lies breeding lies, questions breeding questions. Suspicions raised the voices and caused longer silence.

In between there were lines such as:

"I don't know if I'm bisexual, I just love you."

"Not a red flag at all."

Unanswered questions such as:

"Why didn't you tell me you moved?"

It went as far as Lenore talking about them both quitting their jobs and moving back together with her parents and start a new life.

The day went grueling. The evening would go dull.

Instead it went explosive. Lenore finally admitted she had sex with the two psychos.

The last thing said was:

"I see..."

Dropped by Kate before she stormed out of the apartment.

Lenore called her all night of course. Cried all night. Screamed at a cardboard box she couldn't tear apart.

And she wondered if Kate had left a note inside. If it was in there, lost forever.

*****

Monday (one day)

"I want to quit."

Lenore did not wait for Eliza and her to go in her office, she dropped this in the break area.

The manager smile turned to an expression of dumb surprise in the middle of a gulp of soda. "But...why?"

"Personal matter."

"But but but. I don't understand, we were so close."

"What?"

"From having something, you and I. You know."

"No, I don't know."

"We were trying to be a team, we were trying to make you an artist, what am I gonna tell Prudence Fleischer?"

"I'll talk to her, if she wants to hear me."

"Oh no no no, doesn't work like that, it won't look good, Lana."

"Bu--"

"Let me tell you what's best for you, Lenor, because that's my fucking job actually, you go write what you said you'd write and you don't make me look like a fool, because what would I look like?"

"I..."

"I'm asking you? What would I look like? You think you can hope to work ever again if you don't look good?"

"I'll find something--"

"No you won't, it was my point."

"So...I can't quit."

"Unless you wanna get fired."

Lenore turned around to leave.

"Lana?"

She turned back. "Yes?

"Your story, what is it about?"

The mouth of Eliza grew all teeth. Figuratively.

*****

Lenore opened Word without a care.

She rushed the whole thing. Four thousand words in four hours. She had never done this before. It was gross: walls of Subject-Verb-Object Subject-Verb-Object, stock character arcs, superhero-movie-tier ending... Not once she slowed down to overthink.

Because, in fact, it was a completely different story. No witches. She had decided to knock together some inoffensive blogpost about how pictures of empty familiar spaces are spooky.