This is How We Change the World Ch. 02

15 Jan 2023

Lyric was feeling pretty darn good when she woke up. A little groggy and slow, which always happened the morning after she had a gummy, and a little dried out, but otherwise good. All her muscles felt wrung out, happily exhausted, and she'd slept better than she'd slept in a month. She'd had an amazing day off...

...masturbating with Maddy. Who was...

Lyric sat up, in her own bed. Not the makeshift bed she put together in the dining corner. The sheets next to her were thrown back where Maddy had been.

Blinking felt slow. Everything felt slow. Brain. Body. World. She couldn't hear anything. She reached for her phone, and found a text from Maddy, from thirty minutes earlier. Got called in early to cover Keon going home sick. Try not to enjoy your day off too much without me ;)

"Winky face," she said, out loud.

She got up and went out into the kitchen. The coffee machine was still hot. She vaguely remembered finishing off the pot the night before and thinking I'll make more in the morning, but Maddy had beat her to it. She pulled out her phone again and stared at the text.

"Winky face seems like a good thing."

"You hope," she said, answering herself out loud.

"No. I mean, I don't know what yesterday was, like, at all, but... I think it was a good thing?"

She went into the bedroom, put on her breast form and a t-shirt, and sat down on the edge of the bed. Wearing it again felt good. She would have worn it the previous day, but things had gotten away from her, happening so fast. There was a kind of awareness of herself, the mental map of her body and of the space she was filling up, that felt... right with it on. Sometimes, she would move her arms across her torso expecting them to be there, and they weren't, and she was pretty sure that was what phantom limb syndrome must feel like. The weight of them, and the fit.

She couldn't see the seams herself except barely out of the corner of her eye, so if she just went about her day it felt so natural.

"Oh my god," she said, suddenly remembering all over again that she was in the actual bedroom. "We slept together."

"It was really good. I mean... Has it ever been that good?"

"I usually feel kinda guilty afterwards, but... Yeah, no, not this time." She smiled wistfully.

"But what was that?!"

"Does it have to be something? Does it have to mean something?"

"I think so," she said, furrowing her brow. She walked around her empty apartment, grabbing this and that. Trash. Moving the coffee table back into place. Re-folding the blankets.

"She paid for the food. It might have been a date."

"I should ask."

"Ugh. Don't ask. That's a bad idea. Hi, I know you're like a full grown woman and sophisticated and beautiful and I'm just some dumb kid but did we go on a date last night?"

She made a sound in her throat. "It sounds real bad when I say it out loud."

She went into the bathroom, where there was still a lingering humidity. Maddy must have showered while she slept, though the mirror was clear. She stared at herself for a good few seconds. Her hair was extra crazy, and without makeup she couldn't help but see all the little markers she tried to hide.

"You're avoiding the obvious," she said, to her reflection. "Maddy is hot, and you want to have sex with her."

"No. I mean, yeah, she is, and if things were different I would, but I think yesterday was, like, an opportunity for her to get off while, like... getting around the fact that she's in a relationship? ...So she probably did mean that she'd do it again next week."

She sat down on the couch, with a mug of coffee, and couldn't help falling right back into how good the previous day had felt.

"It isn't even just that she didn't judge any of that."

"It's that too."

"She got off on it! Like, hard!"

"Especially that one of the girl on the couch, which... yeah. That was hot as hell."

"Am I a total bitch for hoping things don't work out with her partners?"

"Yes," she said, firmly. "Yes, you are."

She fell back with a grunt, and sighed. She could still smell Maddy everywhere. Maddy and cookies. She got up and moved over to the armchair that sat next to the TV. The blanket there, one they hadn't used, really smelled like Maddy.

"Did she squirt and I missed it?"

She lifted it to her face and took a long breath through it, letting it fill her lungs.

"Oh, and that thing about the pregnant girl! And I had nothing to add to that!"

"Mmmm. Most of the sex I've had, I wouldn't call hot. It's just work."

"That's sad."

"Yesterday was hot. Was yesterday sex?"

She didn't have an answer for that. In the back of her mind, she was already starting to compile a list of things to watch next week.

"Whatever it was, I wanna do it again."

***

16 Jan 2023

Maddy was exhausted when she got back that evening. She'd already been scheduled to work four to midnight, and going in at noon hadn't helped. She was a little nervous that Lyric had never answered her text, but only a little. She hit the buzzer, and the door opened. When she got up to the seventh floor, the apartment door was unlocked.

"Oh hey," Lyric said, from the kitchen. "You're just in time."

Maddy set down her purse, and took off her jacket. "It's after midnight. Are you just eating now?"

Lyric blushed, and paused ever so slightly. "I kinda lost track of time earlier." Then she leaned over in front of the oven and said, "Perfect." She pulled the door down just a few seconds before the timer went off, and pulled out a nine-by-nine glass pan. The smell was already everywhere. "Works out, though, because now you can eat something fresh instead of reheated in our shitty microwave."

It was some kind of bake, with macaroni and cheese and some breading on top that had a little bit of crispness to it. Maddy sniffed the air more obviously, to get more than what just breathing would tell her. "Tuna?"

"Chicken and herbs," Lyric said, smiling. "And, I only made half of it so it'll keep better, and then I'll make the other half in a couple days."

"You know," Maddy said, as she went to the cupboard for bowls, "If I wasn't there, Amy and François would order takeout. This is a treat. Thank you. I usually did the cooking at home, as long as I was working mornings."

Lyric beamed. "How was it today?"

"Long," Maddy said, stretching and arching her back. She scooped out portions into two bowls, about half of the whole bake, and set them on the counter while Lyric ducked into the refrigerator. "Hey, listen... I hope you don't mind, but... I talked to Eric today."

"Seltzer, water, or—"

"Just some water," Maddy said.

"Why would I mind if you talked to Eric?" Lyric said, pulling out the filtered pitcher and reaching for some glasses.

"Well," she said, "I asked him if he could line up our schedules. So we could walk in and walk home together."

Lyric froze, and only a quick reaction on Maddy's part, reaching over and pushing down slightly on the back end of the pitcher so that it stopped pouring, kept the little brunette from hilariously overfilling one of the glasses.

"I'd been thinking about doing that for a week already, and after yesterday... I don't know, it felt like the thing to do?" She ran out of steam when Lyric just stared at her. "I hope that's okay."

"Yeah," she said, "I mean, no. I mean, uh, good idea. Yes. Okay."

"Okay," Maddy said, feeling a big weight fall off of her shoulders. "Okay!" Then she snapped back to reality. "Oh. Right. Um, the one caveat is that Eric said that if we wanna do that, the only time he can give us is the overnight shift."

"That's fine," Lyric said, brightly, as she moved to the couch. "I love working with Gertrude. She does not give a fuck, and I am here for it."

Maddy snuck into the bedroom, quickly trading their quasi uniform for some green flannel pajamas. When she sat down on the other end of the couch, on her hip with her feet tucked up next to her, Lyric tossed her a blanket. "Thanks," she said. "How was your day?"

Lyric seemed not to hear her at first, focused on moving through the Netflix menus. After a few seconds, though, she said, "I mostly just laid around the house. I had a date that went well, so... that's good."

For a split second, an infinitesimally short moment, Maddy felt a little stab of jealousy, but before she had a chance to interrogate that feeling, her brain really heard what the other girl had said. "Oh, a date."

"Yeah," Lyric said, leaning over her bowl to try and catch food before it fell off her fork.

"And it went okay?"

She paused to swallow. "Um, actually, for a little while I was worried he was following me... like, after. I couldn't tell if he lost me in the subway station or if he just was going in the same direction, but... yeah. Other than that, it went okay." Before Maddy could respond, and she was definitely gearing up for a response, Lyric added, "I missed having you there, though. Like, that was better. I didn't really appreciate it until later that evening, at the time, but I felt it today."

Over the years, Maddy's opinion on sex work had varied wildly. There were times when she took a hard stance against it, and times when she even sorta understood the appeal, if she squinted. By her mid thirties, she felt like she had reached her end stage opinion of acceptance even if she didn't understand it at all.

"Well," she said, "then, I can do that now."

Lyric gave her a look, wide eyes with a soft smile, that made her feel like she'd just given Lyric the best birthday present possible. Then she made a mental note to ask when Lyric's birthday was. Later.

They both ate in silence for a bit, taking in a Ryan Gosling film Maddy couldn't be bothered to invest any real interest in. Lyric seemed to be paying some attention though. "Is he your type?" Maddy asked, smirking.

"One of many," Lyric answered, softly, without missing a beat. Then she swallowed, and seemed to snap out of whatever zone she'd been in. "Hey, how are the repairs on your apartment going?"

Maddy groaned. "I don't know. The super gives us a different story every time one of us calls him. Last I heard, they had to rip out more of the wall than they realized, because apparently whatever was leaking had been leaking for a while and no one knew until it burst. The renovation keeps growing in scope. When it happened, I thought I'd be back there by now, and now I think it might even be another month."

"And... how are the other two taking all this? Amy and Frank?"

Maddy used a forkful of food to buy herself a moment while chewing. "Amy has been using this time to get a lot of traveling done. Visiting clients. Frank can work from anywhere, so they're... in Florence this week, I think."

"Florence, Italy?"

"Mmm-hmmm," Maddy said, loading up with another bite.

"Wow. Fuck that."

Maddy half turned, feeling that old pull to defend her relationship. She'd done it so often, and for so many years, that it was reflex. Once the words were on her tongue, though, a vague insinuation that Lyric didn't know what she was talking about and a doozy of a follow up that maybe Lyric shouldn't be judging other people, Maddy's senses caught up with her. It would have been too much to agree with Lyric, at least out loud, but it also would have been pretty awful to turn her frustration on the one person who had really been there for her recently.

"I'm sorry," Lyric said, softly. "I-I shouldn't have said that. I got all protective for a second there."

"It's nice having someone else be the mama bear," Maddy said, absently.

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Then Lyric asked, "Do they do that kind of thing often?"

"Do what? Travel without me?" Maddy stopped to think. "They do... or what is often, I dunno, but they travel together more often than I go with them. And I don't travel that much anyway. I don't really... it's not even about the money, though they earn a lot more than I do. I just don't know where I would go and why."

She felt defensive again, so she added, "Look, I don't know how your relationships have been, but when there's more than two people, it's a bit complicated. It's not like it's fair only if everyone gets the exact same things at the same time, one hundred percent of the time."

Lyric didn't look convinced, and if Maddy was being honest with herself, neither was she. If pressed, she couldn't have said what it was she was getting from their throuple, nor what it was she was giving.

She had used to know. Hadn't she? Surely she must have.

Maddy shook herself out of her musings and focused on Lyric. The younger woman poked at her food, looking at the TV, but Maddy got the impression she was mostly looking at not-Maddy. After a few more minutes, she got up and took her dishes into the kitchen.

"Oh," Maddy said, hearing the curtain hangers slide on Lyric's makeshift bed. "Hey, um, listen. I... You can come sleep in the bed, if you want." When she didn't hear any outright responses, she added, "Last night was the best I've slept in a while."

Lyric came back out a few seconds later, looking hurt. Looking down. "Are you asking me that because you want me to, or because you're lonely?"

Maddy just stared back, blankly, in confusion.

"Because if it's only that you're lonely and missing those two, that's not okay. That's not okay at all."

"No," Maddy said, finding her resilience. "Of course not. "

"I get used enough as it is."

"Oh my god, no." She put her plate of food down on the end table when she felt it sliding out of her lap. "Lyric, no."

Lyric shook her head and closed her eyes, but she still didn't look up. "That was fucked up. I'm sorry."

"No," Maddy said, getting to her feet and moving toward Lyric. "I... I think you have had to learn to protect yourself in ways I may never understand."

"I don't need you to, like... commit to anything. I know this is temporary. I just..." Lyric's face pinched in on itself. "I just... I think that, if they call up tomorrow and say it's fixed and come back, you'd probably go, and we'd just go back to being coworkers, and..."

"Okay," Maddy said, stepping closer, and wrapping the smaller woman up in her arms. "Okay. Okay."

"I keep showing you little pieces, and letting you in behind the mask, a-a-and—"

"Shhhh," she said, scratching lightly at Lyric's scalp with her nails. "I know. I know."

"No," Lyric said, crying a little, "you don't know. I-I don't let anyone see me without my breasts. Ever. Not even at group, and you just... I'm sorry." She wiped at her eyes and shrugged out of the hug a little. "I'm sorry."

"Lyric?" Maddy said.

Lyric sniffled. "Yes?"

"I really like you. You're the first new friend I've made in... God... since Frank, and before that I don't even know."

The smaller girl nodded reluctantly, still looking pretty much everywhere except straight at her.

"Our... My relationship is open. I can... see people. Spend time with people. I'm not cheating on them."

"But you do miss them," Lyric said, sullenly.

"Of course I do," Maddy said. "I've been with Amy for twenty years. That doesn't reflect on you."

"I'm not asking you to choose," she said, even more quietly. "Just..."

Maddy folded her arms, and nodded. She felt like she should have seen this coming, but it was still difficult to know what to say. "Lyric..."

"Is this really what you want?" Lyric asked, and then she did look up and made eye contact, if only briefly. Lyric looked hurt. "I promise, it's okay if you say no, and I just go back to sleeping out here. This was fine."

"Lyric," Maddy said gently.

Lyric looked away again, blinking, and Maddy reached to stroke her upper arm. She didn't pull it away, which Maddy took as a good sign.

"Yesterday was a lot, wasn't it," Maddy said. Lyric shrugged and still averted her eyes. She didn't say anything, so Maddy continued, "I think we should talk about it. How it felt, what it might mean. But not now, it's so late. I'm sorry I wasn't here when you woke up. And I don't want you to sleep with me, if it's... too... if you don't want to. Of course I don't."

Lyric shrugged and bit her lip. She still didn't meet Maddy's gaze, but she said, quietly, "I slept better last night than I've slept in... like..."

She trailed off, and Maddy didn't say anything either. She let her hand slide down Lyric's arm, until their fingers twined together, and then she squeezed very lightly. Lyric squeezed back. They stood there for a moment, and then Lyric smiled a very small smile, still not looking at Maddy, and pulled her hand free to go to the bathroom.

Maddy put her plate in the sink and waited for her turn to wash up. She didn't know if it would be better to leave Lyric be or try to reassure her further. She could see the younger woman was upset, and kicked herself mentally for not understanding this would happen.

When Maddy came out of the bathroom, Lyric was still lingering in the bedroom. They looked at each other, and then Maddy threw back the covers and gestured for Lyric to climb in. She did, but seemed uncomfortable, like she didn't know how to settle, so Maddy guided her to be the little spoon again. She wrapped her arm around the smaller girl, stroking her arm slowly, and said, "I really don't want to hurt you."

Lyric sniffled. She didn't answer, but she relaxed a little.

***

Lyric was a slow starter in the morning. She always slept until just about the last possible minute and then tried to rush her morning routine, never giving herself the time she knew she needed, and the next morning was barely any different. Hardly at all, with the notable exception of how she felt when she opened her eyes. She felt rested, and she felt comfortable, and she felt warm.

She was in Maddy's arms again, and this time Maddy was still asleep. Breathing softly against Lyric's neck. She reached for her phone, to check the time, and that was enough to stir Maddy from behind her.

"Shit," she whispered. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Maddy said back, very groggily. "I was just dozing. Woke up a little while ago and didn't really want to get up." The redhead took a deep breath and rolled out of bed. "You're in at noon, right?"

"Mmmhmm," Lyric said, still resisting the urge to get up.

"I'll make some coffee while you shower."

"Does that mean I have to shower?"

"No shower, no coffee."

With great reluctance, and the urgency of a sloth on her happiest day, Lyric moved into the bathroom, stripped out of her grimy clothes, and turned on the water. Fifteen minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom feeling a little more like herself. She dried herself off, slid on the silicone breast form, and spent a minute touching up the freckles she put there with makeup.

"Perfect timing," Maddy said, as she came out a little later, finally all made up. She handed Lyric a cup of very black coffee, and leaned against the counter. Somewhere in all of that, the older woman had put on a robe. "Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

Lyric nodded, and tried to match Maddy's more confident posture.

"Okay. I did some thinking before I fell asleep, and I think I... Are you a virgin?"

Lyric's eyes opened wide, caught off guard by the question. "Obviously no."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I mean... like, in your personal life. Johns don't count."

She took a sip of coffee just as Maddy finished talking, and caught her breath. "Sure. That's how I hitchhiked from Chicago to New York. Truckers are pretty strict about gas, grass, or ass."

Maddy frowned. "That's not what I mean and you know it."

"I had a boyfriend in high school," she said, rolling her eyes. "Back when I thought I was just gay. We... fooled around. Yeah. A couple times with him."