This is How We Change the World Ch. 04

Lyric un-straddled her, shifted Maddy's legs so that they weren't crossed, and settled back between them again. Hands under Maddy's thighs to spread them wider.

"Babe?"

Lyric did something she'd never done before, but had secretly dreamed of. She buried her face between Maddy's cheeks, and rimmed her. She snuck an arm underneath herself, which was awkward with her boobs taking up all the space, and managed to get a fingertip on Maddy's clit.

"OoooOooo," Maddy moaned. "Oh that... That is..."

Maddy didn't say much else for the next minute. Lyric couldn't see, and could barely hear over the blood still pumping in her ears, but she could feel the way Maddy was grinding back into her. Hips rolling. Faster. Lyric had never rimmed anyone. She'd seen it done, and thought it looked hot, and really had no frame of reference for how good it felt beyond Maddy's seeming enjoyment.

Or, at least, she had no frame of reference until Maddy orgasmed. Fully body shuddering. She hadn't been able to stay where she was because Maddy squeezed her legs together and partially turned. Lyric got all tangled up in her legs, but that seemed like a pretty incredible place to be.

"You cheeky little shit," Maddy said, once she finally had her breath. She rolled back onto her front, stopped the recording, and gave Lyric the least threatening side eye Lyric had ever been on the receiving end of once she laid down next to her.

"How did that feel?" Lyric asked, cozying up until their hips and shoulders were touching.

"Which part? Getting fucked or getting rimmed?"

"Getting filmed," Lyric said, exasperatedly.

She nodded slowly, and got back to work in the editing software. "We'll see how it comes out. I may keep it, and I may not."

"Do you want a gummy now?"

"Fuck yeah," Maddy said, grin getting lazier.

***

The next few hours were slightly less productive. Maddy had this habit of wiggling her hips while she worked, which was far too enticing for Lyric. After a little while, she pulled Maddy up onto all fours and fucked her doggystyle. Then, a little later, she dragged Maddy back over the edge of the bed and fucked her from behind.

If she hadn't known better, she'd have thought Maddy was baiting her, but it turned out Maddy was just a wiggly worker. She hummed and she tapped her fingers, and she shifted her hips constantly. Lyric had no defense against this.

***

They were laid out on the couch, eating an order of mozzarella sticks they'd ordered from a local Italian place. The romcom they'd just watched had ended, and Lyric was feeling pretty good. Romcoms were kind of perfect for their days off. The good ones had the right mix of laughs and sexual tension, and mostly forgettable plots, that they could really zone out while watching them or fuck or, if the mood should strike them, pay attention and enjoy.

"What should we watch next?" Lyric said, leaning forward for the remote. "Something on Netflix? Or--"

"Oh!' shouted Maddy. She sat bolt upright, turned her head sharply to stare at Lyric, and smiled.

"What?"

"I just remembered! I've been wanting to try something!"

Lyric smirked, and checked in with herself. "Something... sexy?"

Maddy nodded emphatically, which did amazing things to her hair.

"I could go again," Lyric said.

Maddy smiled wolfishly, and rolled with a surprising amount of grace to get down onto the ground and between Lyric's legs. She moved quickly, taking Lyric's soft length into her mouth and lavishing it with a swirling tongue.

Lyric's head fell back against the couch, and she let out a long, low whimper. Maddy's oral game was incredible, and it was hard not to just melt into the couch. She felt so good, and so loose, and so happy, and, little by little, so incredibly hard. When Maddy's head started bobbing up and down, in earnest, Lyric's whimpering turned into a kind of warbling, up and down groan.

"Okay," Maddy said, pulling back. A strand of saliva and precum dangled from her lip, which was fucking incredible, and when she stood up her smile was somehow even wider. "Now. Scoot down."

Lyric said, "I don't--" but it didn't matter. Maddy grabbed her hips and moved her anyway. Scooped her hands underneath Lyric's knees, and raised them up.

"Hold these," she said, pushing Lyric's legs further and further back.

Lyric complied, hooking her arms behind her thighs, and watched with a slack jaw as Maddy angled her cock out, down and away from the angle of her torso, and moved into a low, wide squat to take her. Then Maddy started thrusting.

It was incredible to watch. Maddy was fucking her, controlling the pace and the tempo in a way that was so masculine, and so hot. For a moment, she forgot which way the cock was going. It felt insane. What she was seeing and what she was feeling did not line up at all.

Maddy had her hands on Lyric's ankles, using them for leverage and to brace herself. Lyric had never felt so opened up, and so exposed. It was exhilarating. Her eyes were so wide she thought they might fall out, staring at the incredible intersection of cock and pussy.

Maddy was fucking her. She wanted to be fucked. It wailed at her dysmorphia with the sharpened precision of an ice pick. She was being fucked like a girl, from the front, and when she closed her eyes it was the most incredible feeling. Somehow even better without the benefit of sight.

She chanced a glance up at Maddy, at the incredibly intense expression the older woman wore. Her tits were moving like Lyric had never seen them move, very near to windmilling, and Maddy's cheeks and brow were flush with color.

Maddy was so focused. Was that how she looked when she was fucking? She hoped so. She'd have been lucky to be half as hot as Maddy was, bearing down on her.

She had no idea she was clenching so tightly until she tried to say "I'm gonna cum," and it came out more like "Imnagmmm!!"

Maddy's eyes were alight from within as she drove herself down one last time, and planted herself in place. Knees braced against the couch. She was puffing like a steam train, but there was such a plain joy in her face. Of course, these were things Lyric really only recognized later, in her mind's eye as she remembered the moment. At the time, all she could do was squeeze and let it feel.

Maddy let go of one of her ankles, and Lyric's leg rubber-ly settled against her shoulder. Maddy's fierce expression went slack as she swiped manically at her clit, extended fingers blurring up and down. Lyric was still pulsing, pushing out cum in waves, and the vibrations she felt from Maddy's masturbation were like rich cheesecake after a meal. Their hips were so tightly pressed together that she felt the swiping in her core.

Maddy clenched her teeth, lines forming tightly around her eyes, and she let out a series of meeping sounds that Lyric was not at all sure meant she was cumming. Not until there was a slacking, and a slowing, and Maddy's unfocused eyes reappeared.

Maddy flopped onto the couch, just barely getting around Lyric's leg as she rolled, and the two of them just lay together, panting. Lyric gestured, weakly, and Maddy spun around on the couch until her legs were stretched across Lyric's lap.

"That deserves a massage," Lyric said.

Maddy was still panting. "Was... that... good?"

Lyric didn't have an answer that felt appropriate. She didn't think she had the vocabulary to express how thrilled she was by the intersection of her gender performance, sexuality, submissively receiving, and the way her brain kept seeing the direction backwards like it was Maddy's cock going into her. She certainly didn't have the mental faculty, still floating in a CBD sea.

Instead, she just lolled her head to the side, toward Maddy, and made very direct, unblinking eye contact.

"Okay," Maddy said, giggling. "Good."

***

05 Mar 2023

"Okay, Lyric. Come on down."

Eric whistled the Price is Right theme softly as he walked, leading the way back to the office. Maddy gave her a thumbs up and a smile, which felt like a good sign. She was glad the day was almost over. They had two days off, in a row, coming up, and Lyric was excited to film more. She'd been letting her creativity brew in the background, coming up with ideas and angles and funny titles.

She shut the office door behind herself and sat down in the only other chair in the office aside from the chair at the desk, where Eric was settling in.

"Alright... alright. I know we're a month overdue. Sorry about that. It's always a little tough to get these scheduled with the overnight crew, but I figured we could get you and Maddy done at the same time, bing bang boom."

"It's okay," Lyric said, nodding hopefully.

Eric made some drumming noises as he shuffled his papers around. "Alright, let's see. What are we at, four years now? Wow. Time flies."

"Yeah," Lyric said, laughing. "Feels like yesterday, sometimes, but it's been a long time."

"You had..." He clucked his tongue three times as he flipped through papers in a folder. "...three mystery shoppers this year. High marks on all of them. You upsold. Two of them said their drinks were perfect."

"Oh good," Lyric said, sitting up a little straighter with every word.

"The first one was mostly auditing prepackaged stuff, that matcha we had for a little bit, so that had nothing to do with you."

"Oh."

"But, no, good stuff. Good stuff."

Lyric bit her lip and smiled.

"Now, I know it's been a couple tough years, and we're glad you've stuck with us. We hadn't been able to do raises since your second year, but we can now."

Her heart was racing, but she did her best to keep her expression humble.

"I know we're behind, so this isn't what I'd want to give you, but we can get you fifty cents an hour."

"Okay," she said, nodding. "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Alright. I might try to do more six months from now. We'll have to see where we're at." He flipped a page, stared at it for a moment, and then sat back to look directly at her. "I like to come out of these with some things to work on, and for you I think that's probably the craft. I know you're good, and I'm glad those shoppers were pleased, but I think we both know that's maybe your biggest weakness. I mean, you've got good.. what's that, quality control instincts so you dump a lot instead of giving customers something you're not happy with. That's good, that protects our reputation, we love that, but I'd like to see you putting less down the drain."

Lyric grit her teeth as hard as she could, and nodded. "Right. Got it."

"It's been great having you and Madalyn on nights. Our repeat business is through the roof with that kind of skill set covering the quiet hours. There's a whole demographic of people working off hours, and having this be the place they think of when they need a pick-me-up, or have time for a break, is tremendous for us. I told her the same thing, and I'm gonna tell you now; we're happy."

"Okay."

"Is there anything I can do for you? Is there anything we can do better?"

"I'm... really happy here," she said, honestly. "I love this place. I wanna be here for a while."

"That's what I wanna hear, you know? We're not interested in training people just to have 'em go somewhere else and do it right."

He put out his hand, and Lyric shook it.

***

"Did you get one?"

"Yeah," Lyric said, as she walked alongside Maddy on their way home. Only afterwards did she really hear the difference in pronunciation. One, with a slight pause, instead of one.

"Oh good," Maddy said, visibly and audibly relieved. "I know we're not supposed to compare, but I was really hoping Eric would show you some love. You deserve every cent of it."

"Yeah, every..."

Maddy deserved a good raise. Hell, Maddy deserved more. Twice that. She was great at her job. Lyric was, truly, happy for her.

She'd gotten half of what Maddy had gotten. Suddenly, all those nice things Eric had said, all the nice things she'd smiled at, felt more polite than nice. Was this how it started? Shortchanging her here and there. Nickel and diming her down until she quit on her own? If she got fired, they'd have to pay her unemployment.

She'd heard about this sort of thing from some people at group. No business wanted the optics of firing a trans kid for being trans, not unless they were gonna go all in on that kind of reputation, but they could make it hard. Harder and harder, little by little. The frog is alive when it goes in the water.

Her memory started lying to her. Had Eric been smiling when they talked, or had he been smirking? Had he flinched when they shook hands?

She knew none of that was real. She'd been there. She'd been in the room. Eric had been straight with her, and if she was being honest with herself a fifty cent raise was nothing to sneeze at. That, every hour, and more when she worked overtime. It would help.

Fifty cents was good, wasn't it?

"You okay?" Maddy said, tapping her on the shoulder.

"Uh, yeah," Lyric replied, snapping back to the moment and painting on a smile. "Yeah. Good. Sorry, I just... drifted a little."

"I hear you," Maddy said, sagging comedically as she walked. "It's been a long week, and I honestly can't remember the last time I had two days off in a row."

She nodded, and did her best to keep her feet moving at the same speed as Maddy's. Fear had kept her alive on more than a few occasions, but it was also her worst enemy.

***

Maddy was moving and grooving in the kitchen, working on pancake batter. It had occurred to her that she was doing an awful lot of dancing recently. When she thought about it, the best she'd been able to come up with was that she felt lighter of late. She didn't know what to attribute it to, specifically, but it felt nice to be upbeat again. It'd been a long time.

A really long time.

She heard the bathroom door open, and got her smirk ready to go. It was early on a day off. She and Lyric had talked about a couple different ideas for things they could film today, and she was feeling particularly experimental. The microphone had arrived, so she was really excited to mess around with placement, and getting a really good recording of Lyric panting as she came. Lyric had such an incredible little squeal.

She'd messed around a little with the editing program she was using, and it looked like she could do some cool things with effects.

Lyric blew past the kitchen, and Maddy was surprised to see her clothed. March nights in New York were usually pretty cold, but their apartment was surprisingly cozy. They'd put down a couple nice rugs, and--

She'd called it their apartment. Even if it was only in her head, it felt important.

Maddy turned, bringing the bowl of batter with her while she whisked. Lyric was on the couch in a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over her head.

"You okay?" Maddy asked. Her mind drifted towards Lyric's listlessness on the walk home, and she started going through the checklist of early symptoms for cold and flu and COVID.

Lyric took a long time to respond. When she did respond, her voice was rough. Deeper, or maybe heavier, than usual. "I don't want to shoot anything today."

"That's okay," Maddy said, whisking away. "We've got time tomorrow."

Lyric, from her spot on the couch, made a sound that was far more dismissive than was normal. It was the tone of it that got Maddy's attention more than that Lyric was disinterested. She put the batter down and came around to sit on the other end of the couch. Lyric was staring at the TV, but it wasn't on. Staring and breathing in a kind of jerky, arhythmic fashion.

"You're not okay."

Lyric twitched in surprise, head whipping around. She hadn't seen me move? Maddy thought.

"What's going on?"

Her little girlfriend couldn't meet her gaze for long. She just curled in on herself. Her eyes kept moving, as she often did when she was thinking, but no more words came out. After a few seconds it looked like she stopped trying to find the words, and just fell back into the couch.

Maddy had never felt shut out by Lyric. This was new, and it didn't feel good. Words weren't working. Maddy wanted to help, but she didn't know how, so she got up and went back to the kitchen. She picked up the batter, which was ready and didn't really need any more working, and was about to turn on their little electric griddle that did a better job of warming up evenly than the stove top did when a thought hit her. She put down the bowl as quietly as she could, and went back into the bathroom.

It was messy, which was unusual for her; Lyric was neat, an extremely desirable trait in a roommate. There were hairs in the sink which might have been eyebrow or pubic. Clothes on the ground in the middle of the floor. Wipes in the trash can. Lyric had taken off makeup.

Everything she was seeing said that Lyric had gone through some or all of her preparations, getting ready to film something, only to ditch it all at the eleventh hour and throw on some shapeless sweats.

It was this last thought, that the sweats were shapeless, that tugged at something. Some things Lyric had said. She stepped out of the bathroom and, through the door into the kitchen, watched Lyric curl up into a ball on the couch, with a pillow pulled to her chest. Maddy had some suspicions, but asking felt like the wrong approach. She wished Lyric could have trusted her enough to tell her, because there was some potential to make everything worse by guessing wrong, but it couldn't be helped.

This might not be about you at all, she told herself.

To buy herself time, she baked the pancakes.

The scent was usually enough to lure Lyric into the kitchen. Now she didn't even stir. Maddy put one on a plate, with butter melting on top, and went to the living room.

She sat down besides Lyric, nudging her to lift up her head. Lyric wasn't really willing, but Maddy was insistent, and soon she had Lyric's head on her thigh, still with the hood on. She couldn't see Lyric's face: only a curve of her cheek, the tip of her nose, and a few strands of brown hair.

Lyric was tense. She held the pillow tight against her chest. Maddy cupped her shoulder, stroking lightly. She didn't have her breast form on; all Maddy felt was her round shoulder under the heavy fabric.

"Is it something I did?"

Lyric snorted. "Why would it be?"

"I don't know. I hope I haven't pushed you too hard with the video thing."

"I was already a cheap whore before we met."

Not taking the bait was a struggle. "Okay, so what is it then?"

Lyric sighed. She rubbed her cheek against Maddy's thigh. She didn't answer, and Maddy didn't know what to do but wait. She still held Lyric's shoulder, and when Lyric didn't shrug her hand away that felt like something.

Hair was falling on Lyric's face and it was clearly bothering her. She brushed it away, but it fell down again. Maddy tugged on her hood, gently, and Lyric let her pull it down. Maddy tucked the rogue strand behind her ear, which was suspiciously red: either Lyric was really hot in her hoodie, or then she was blushing. Maddy let her hand rest on Lyric's forehead, stroking on her eyebrows lightly.

"You are not a cheap whore," Maddy said. "Why would you say that? I thought you were okay with what you do. Are you having second thoughts?"

"I don't know what you want from me, okay? Besides, I don't know what else you'd call someone who's so desperate she'd blow a guy for ten bucks."

"Hey, hey," Maddy said with mock sternness, stroking down the bridge of Lyric's nose. "You'll have to answer to me, if you talk that way about my girlfriend."

Lyric sighed again. She was biting her lip. Maddy didn't know what to say, but unexpectedly Lyric continued. "Sometimes, with you, I can forget who I really am." Then she sniffed, and added, "Sometimes I can look in the mirror and not see the boy living in the bus station, hiding in a stall at night, but he always comes back. I was so stupid to think I could just come here and start over."