San Fermín

Ana held out her hand and took Holly's. "Come on," she said, and pulled Holly out into street. And Holly went with her, still smiling.

*

They walked. There was kissing on the way. There was aching to be touched so much that it hurt. There were open mouths and soft lips and hands squeezing together as they kissed. There was the taste of hot sweaty skin, and gasping breaths and there were fingers inside Holly's shirt, down the front of her trousers, grabbing and touching and pressing. There was being pushed into walls, and pressed against, and being bumped by passing crowds while they kissed.

There was people pushing wine into their hands, and drinking it as they kissed, and Ana talked to someone, a friend, someone she knew, while Holly kissed her neck. There were people calling out to them, rude things, awful things, which they ignored, too involved with each other to care, and there were people pulling the men shouting away because Holly and Ana had run, and people knew, and that meant something. Holly only vaguely noticed the name-callers leave, but she was glad when they had, and felt safer.

There were narrow alleys, away from the thinning crowd, and privacy and quiet. There was hard cool stone against Holly's back, snagging and scratching at her hair, and Ana holding her wrists, and a subtle grinding, the pressing of legs between Holly's. There was fucking against a wall, glancing around, making sure they weren't seen. And Holly's sighs, and Holly's need, and Holly's touches of Ana's skin.

Eventually, in the end, there was an apartment building and a dark narrow stairwell and a creaking wooden door on the third floor. They were still close to the centre of the city. The was a roaring hum in the distance from the crowd. Then the apartment door swung closed, and Holly was undressing Ana.

"In here," Ana said.

Ana's mouth tasted of wine and her skin tasted of salt and sweat and she was warm and smooth against Holly's body. She was loud. She moaned and gasped and whispered breathless pleas for Holly not to stop, or to go faster, or to slow down. While she did she had her mouth on Holly, her tongue inside Holly, her breath whispering over Holly's thigh. She sucked on Holly. She licked Holly's lips, she spread Holly with her hands, and sucked parts of Holly into her mouth. She held Holly's breasts, and hips, and scraped her nails down Holly's tummy. She tasted of wine, and sweat, and in the end of Holly, and Holly couldn't think for how much she wanted her.

It was the excitement and danger, Holly thought. It was almost a panic, fucking themselves into unconsciousness in case this went away.

Ana was on her side, pulling Holly close, so they could curl together and reach each other with their mouths. They licked each other until Holly's jaw hurt, and her tongue was numb, and the back of it was aching where it joined her mouth and the wriggling happened from, and her mouth was dry and her cheeks sucked hollow and she just couldn't lick any more. She tried to use her hand, to give her tongue a rest, to pretend she wasn't, a little embarrassed because Ana seemed to have an untiring mouth. Or perhaps Ana ate pussy more, and Holly's mouth wasn't in practice. Eventually Holly's mouth hurt too much, and she had to stop. "I'm sorry," she said, so Ana turned her over and fucked her.

Holly hadn't ever been able to do this herself. She'd never practiced enough to get the hang of how to move. She lay there, impressed. Impressed for a moment, then just into it, feeling pleasure, wanting. She tipped her hips back, and hooked her legs around Ana, and tried to pull Ana against herself.

When she came, she was fairly sure she bent herself upwards so much only her ass and the back of her head were still on the bed.

Holly came, and Ana kept going. Ana was close too, and Holly watched. Ana fucked her, and started going slightly cross-eyed, and breathing in little pants, and whispering something that might have been, "Don't laugh at me," like she thought Holly might, but Holly's Spanish wasn't quite good enough to work it out. Then she came too.

Ana came, and kept going. Holly was a little surprised.

Ana had obviously come. She'd closed her eyes and gasped and moaned and gone all floppy, all over, for a second. And then started fucking Holly again.

Excitement, Holly thought. Danger. Holly wanted more too, and didn't especially care why.

Ana shifted a little, like she wanted to fuck Holly with a slightly different part of herself. Like she was getting chafed, even though she didn't want to stop. She unhooked one of Holly's feet, and lifted the other one higher, and started moving again. Kissing Holly, stroking, sometimes sliding down and licking Holly out and then sliding back up and fucking her again, kissing Holly with a mouth that tasted like them. Holly wasn't sure why that was so hot, but it was. Wine and Ana and the taste of herself, all mixing on Ana's mouth.

Ana slid down, and licked Holly for a while, then slid up and kept sliding. She sat herself across Holly's face, her knees on the bed, and held Holly's hair, and pressed herself onto Holly's mouth. Hard, so Holly couldn't breathe for a moment, so her lips were squashed against Ana. Holly opened her mouth and let her. She drank the taste of Ana. She was surprised at herself. She'd usually have been furious if someone did that without asking, but she didn't mind now. Because Ana was Ana. Or perhaps because it was today. She felt like someone different to who she'd been this morning, which didn't quite make sense. She couldn't be someone that new, running in a crowded street with a handful of bulls didn't change anyone that much. Except it seemed to have.

Holly lay under Ana, and drank Ana in, and let Ana hold onto the bed and fuck her mouth until she was done, and didn't care about a thing except the taste and smell and feel of sex. And the pleasure of sex. And of being alive.

Later she did it to Ana, although she asked if she could first.

*

Later, Holly lay in the bed, too exhausted to move. She was still sore from running, and from being bumped into in the crowd. All of her ached. They had found bruises on each other from hitting walls, and a scratch in the small of Ana's back she didn't remember getting, or what had caused it, or how.

Ana said she needed food, and went to look for something, and once she was up, Holly heard voices and realized someone else had been home, and probably listening the whole time.

Holly didn't especially care.

The voices were loud, though, and getting louder. What had seemed like teasing was suddenly arguing. Holly wondered if she should get up and make sure Ana was all right. She worried about an angry girlfriend, or a disapproving mother. She lay there listening, trying to work out what was being said. She couldn't follow the Spanish, it was too quick and angry. The argument didn't end, so Holly got up and wrapped the sheet around herself and went out to look.

There was another woman out there arguing with Ana.

"Hey," Holly said.

Ana jumped then said something in Spanish about see what the other woman had done.

Then there was more shouting.

"Is everything okay?" Holly said.

Ana nodded, but the other woman kept talking. Holly waited, feeling awkward, wearing a sheet.

"What's wrong?" Holly said. "Should I go?"

"No," Ana said, but kept arguing in Spanish.

Holly stood where she was, helpless.

"We're housemates in Madrid," Ana said, after a moment. "We came here together. But she does not approve of the bulls, and wishes to spare them."

"It's cruel," the other woman said suddenly, in English.

"And she won't stop telling me because I disagree."

"Oh," Holly said, unsure what to do. She didn't care that much about bulls. She ate steak enough it didn't seem to matter if a few more died. "Come back to bed," she said. "Please?"

And Ana looked smug, she glared at the housemate smugly, and then she did.

*

Later, they got up. They got dressed, and their clothes got mixed up because they were both wearing too much white. Holly ended up with Ana's shirt, and then decided not to say, to keep it, as a souvenir. A souvenir because Holly was assuming this wasn't going to last, that if it wasn't only for tonight, it was only for the festival. That once San Fermín was over they'd each go their own way. Neither of them had actually said, but Holly was assuming, and the knowing made it special and sweet and a little sad.

They got up, and went to the Struendo, the Roar, and watched people beat drums and shout and scream to the sky. They bought food from people in the street, and started to eat, and then looked at each other, and couldn't wait, and went back to Ana's apartment to fuck.

And later they ate the food with their fingers, now cold. They ate, and then had sex again, and then Holly slept.

Much later, in the pale light of the next early dawn, Ana whispered, "Wake up, you should come and see."

"What?" Holly said.

"Come see."

They got up, and dressed again, and went out to the edge of the city, past the last wandering tourists, sleeplessly drunk, and past the cleaners and the police and the builders making fences for the day's bull-runs. They went to the edge of the city and watched as a new group of bulls were taken into the pens. They were run, as they were in the streets later. A group of bulls came clattering along a quiet street. A man in green with a stick chasing them in the pale light.

It was still, and quiet, and very ancient.

"This is always how they move them," Ana said. "Before the run. Before everything. This is what the bullrun is, really. What it means. What started it."

It was odd, and quiet, and strangely important, after the chaos in the street near the arena. What started it, Holly thought. Bulls and running and cities and gods. Everything it was and had always had been.

It felt old and important and strangely touching. She reached out and took Ana's hand.

They walked back slowly, holding hands, ignoring people's stares. They were runners, still dressed in red and white. They could do as they wished. They stopped and kissed on a corner near the arena and ignored the builders' hammering.

"Are you going to run again today?" Ana said.

"I think so, yeah."

Ana nodded, and squeezed her hand, and they walked back towards her apartment as the sun rose.

They had sex, touching, poignant sex, until Holly felt different, made anew. And after that until they slept for a while, exhausted. And then they woke, and it was time to run again, and this time they ran together.