Under the Sky

Kay was very sweet and she liked her immensely, but she wasn't sure if a new relationship would help in the healing process she knew she needed. It wasn't a logical thing to do and Hannah instinctively relied on logic to help her navigate her way through life.

Meanwhile Kay also had misgivings. Hannah inspired and excited her and she found her natural grace stirred another emotion she had missed for too long. Hannah made her heart skip, and filled her with longing. The affection she felt could never be sated by hugs and humour alone. Her feelings glowed inside her when she was with Hannah, even now as she thought about her long limbs, wet and glistening in the shower. To touch and be touched.

If she was to win Hannah's heart she must give her time and space and be patient. The need for patience would be a sweet agony to endure, but Kay thought she must wait.

"Hannah? Leave the water running, I will shower too," she called, her head close to the door.

The door opened a fraction and Hannah's steamy face appeared.

"Kay?" Hannah spoke, wiping the moisture that ran down her face from her hair. "We've shared tears and a bed. Pop yourself in here and I'll wash your hair for you."

This unexpected invitation surprised Kay and she hoped her blush went unnoticed. She dropped her towel over the door handle and stepped into the shower cubicle. Hannah was standing to one side with her hands up at her face so as to hide her small breasts. The spray of water caught her tummy and a trickle of water trickled from her pubic hair as Kay stepped under the spray.

"Didn't you ever shower with your sister, Kay?" Hannah asked, as she stood behind Kay and massaged shampoo into her thick dark hair.

"No," Kay answered over the noise of the water. "I never shower with anyone before, not like this."

Hannah laughed, "I don't believe that for a second. What about other girlfriends?"

Kay didn't answer but closed her eyes to the sensations that would have made her shiver, but for the warmth of the water on her skin and the gentle hands in her hair. After a minute Hannah was done and Kay hung her head in the water to let the foam rinse out.

"Is all gone now, Hannah?" Kay spluttered, waving her hands out like a little penguin in a way that made Hannah smile.

Being naked with her like this was an innocent intimacy and she enjoyed Kay's curves and the natural softness in the shape of her hips.

"You're done," said Hannah, twisting the tap to the shower, so that only large drops continued to fall in a steady rhythm. Kay bent then flicked back her wet hair in one swift move, soaking Hannah in the process, making her cry out in mock indignation.

Hannah reached outside the door and retrieved their towels, instructing Kay to turn in a circle as she enveloped her, pulling her own over her chest.

"Thank you, Hannah. That was super nice." Kay said as she coiled another towel over the dark mop of her hair.

"Were you serious about not having a shower with anyone before?" Hannah asked in some amazement.

"No, honestly. Never," Kay answered.

"But you mentioned this woman in London. I mean, you were more than just friends weren't you?" Hannah's curiosity was piqued.

"Yes, we were lovers, but somehow that thing never happened. Honestly Hannah -- I can see you doubt me, but it's true!" Kay put a hand to her mouth as she giggled.

"You poor thing! You had all that selfishness to endure but not showers. No baths either, I assume?"

Kay gave a big shrug and shook her head.

"She was not a bad person. We loved... " Kay left the sentence unfinished and looked away.

"I'm pleased to hear you say that, Kay. We all need love. It's what makes life worth living."

"Exactly. But now also I love taking showers with you..." Kay stopped herself and bit her lower lip as if to undo the words she'd let slip.

They let the conversation drop there and padded around the room as they fixed themselves up after their shower.

Hannah pushed herself back on the bed to lean against the wall and Kay came and sat cross-legged next to her. They began to swap stories, talk about their families, about their hopes, until the sun drew long shadows across the floor and up the wall opposite.

"So, tell me, Hans. How do you feel now about Paul? Are you angry with him? Does it make you want to cry, because you can cry if you want -- it's permitted." Kay turned her head to Hannah.

Hannah blew her cheeks out in a long sigh and rolled her head to look back at Kay.

"Oh, I don't know. In some ways, yes, I'm angry, but you know what? I'm most angry with myself, for allowing myself to believe it could happen between us. I was stupid. I threw myself at him."

"Hmm, I think I understand," Kay replied with a slow nod. "But you know, it takes two to make a couple. But I understand Paul would find it hard to say 'no' to you."

"That's kind of you, Kay -- I think." Hannah looked back with a quizzical smile.

"It's not kindness, Han. It is also true." Kay said the words quietly, almost to herself. She put her hand out to Hannah.

Hannah accepted it, holding it in her own and rubbing her thumb in gentle circles over Kay's skin.

They sat in comfortable silence, each with their own thoughts. Kay was terrified that she would push Hannah away by revealing her true feelings and Hannah was equally terrified she would welcome them.

"Kay. Karolina? I'm not ready for this. It's not because of Paul, not really. There was someone else before him and all these relationships feel like a motorway disaster to me, like they have tail-gated each other. In some ways I feel responsible. I should take some responsibility for the hurt that has happened to them, and me... " Hannah's voice trailed off as she grappled with so many conflicting thoughts.

"Yet," said Kay softly and turning to look at Hannah. "Yet here we are. You and me."

With that Kay quickly leaned across and kissed Hannah's cheek, with the speed of a thief grabbing an unguarded treasure.

Hannah was torn between her logic and being drawn by her feelings towards this bewitching woman. Despite a voice in her head telling her 'no', she found herself leaning in towards Kay, uncertain of what would happen next.

As soon as Kay saw this, her heart leapt and she moved to kiss Hannah. Their lips had touched before in play, in brief affection and consolation, but this kiss spoke of something much more profound to them both.

Hannah drew back quickly, chastising herself for her recklessness and leaving Kay stranded and leaning into air.

"Stop me, Kay. Please. Don't let me," Hannah murmured to her, but Kay was already moving inexorably towards her.

"I don't want to stop, Hannah. I can't," Kay murmured back, in the same trancelike tone.

Kay leaned towards Hannah, whose resistance crumbled to her gentle insistence. They were now lying side by side as Kay combed her fingers through Hannah's damp hair.

"You make me feel so alive, Hannah. My heart might stop for it beats so hard. Feel. Here, touch me," Kay whispered and took Hannah's hand to press it flat over her heart.

Hannah could have resisted but she did not, and the gesture left her mute. Her own heart beat hard and her head filled with a familiar pressure, so that her ears rang with a tiny shrill and breathing was impossible. She was fixed in this moment and if there was a clock in the room, its quiet tick would have slowed to silence, its pendulum left hanging in time.

The air in the room waited over them. Hannah, unable to move, heard Kay's shaky, warm, living breath. So close, this intimacy of faces. The jokes, the tears, the held hands and hugs they had shared, fell away from Hannah's mind into this inescapable decision. She watched as her fingers spread to cradle the softness of Kay's breast. She had crossed the line from affection to passion and there could be no return - no more games, no puzzles or uncertainty.

A bond was struck in that moment that would consume them both and fill their waking hours and dreams. Secret memories would grace their smiles. Nervous excitement would bubble on a bus ride home. The ringing phone - a frantic rush to answer and texts - a sudden need for solitude.

Hannah's fingers stroked the warm softness of Kay's breast, her fingers painting brush strokes back and forth over her skin, then enveloped its comfort again. Her hand seemed to move by itself - she felt the touch of Kay's skin, felt the warmth beneath, and traced her fingertips round the frill of Kay's nipple, coral on translucent pale.

Hannah saw the serenity in Kay's eyes and the calm welcome of Hannah's touch. She watched as Kay closed her eyes, drugged and slow, then moved to kiss her lips again.

They kissed slowly, neither wanting to lose the moment. Languidly, with shared breath and sliding tongues that slow-danced together, the clinging dance of familiar lovers. Deeper, with no need for air, that became an obstacle to their passion. Why would they want air when they had this? What more could they ask but to die in this perfect embrace?

They had twice shared a bed, lain with dreams coiled together. How simple now and how natural to share their nakedness? What was friendship then, became hunger now and from inside, the ache grew in them both. Their entwined legs pressed upward as bodies craved a deeper embrace.

Towels fell away as hands dragged soft flesh into ripples across skin. Their kisses were bold and their tongues wrestled in each other's mouths. Kay pushed Hannah's shoulders back and moved to rest her little weight on her, pressing a thigh between hers, and felt the wetness there.

Their hips took up the tussle from their urgent tongues, bareback astride the other's thigh.

Passion urged them blindly and unsure of its speed, Kay broke their kiss with a sharp breath. She searched the other's eyes as little smiles of happy delight grew broadly in both their faces. Lips brushed noses. Kay's hair hung in a dark curtain over Hannah's face to hide their first shared secret.

"Beautiful. So beautiful," Kay whispered and Hannah pulled her closer, their faces pressed hot against each other's cheek.

Hannah rolled Kay onto her back to crouch beside her. She bent to kiss the little space behind Kay's ear, and meandered the line of her neck with lazy wet kisses. Hannah's tongue explored the hollows of pale shoulders and lapped at milky skin.

Kay mewed like a dreaming child as Hannah's lips walked a certain trail to her breasts.

Brush strokes, feather soft on her skin.

Kay's need grew and her thighs crossed and re-crossed over her empty sex. Opening to Hannah, like a fledgling's mouth desperate for food, but cheated by her lover's too slow kisses on her belly. This wonderful, lovely woman with whom she had shared so much, with such intensity, in laughter and tears, now completed their circle of love with her lips, her touch, with little croons of simple joy.

Hannah's hands brushed slow circles across Kay's thighs. She kissed Kay's legs, letting her hands rise in symmetry to the soft flair of her hips. Another stroke and her thumbs brushed Kay's sex, barely enough to nudge the plump lips.

Their breath held in thick silence with hints of almost sound. The drifting sand of Hannah's hand on skin whispered hush. The broody cluck of her wet tongue making a damp furrow first one side then the other, then crossed the bristle bridge of Kay's dark tangled hair, full of tangs and tastes.

Kay flexed her knees, giving herself to Hannah, who tilted her head to press there, where the sex was hottest, where oily wetness lay thick, where the animal scent of lust filled her nose and touch in exquisite softness here, then here.

Kay couldn't hold her breath forever and it came in little desperate gasps.

Hannah knew her lover's agony and took pity. She painted her tongue in rich, lazy, colours along Kay's sex as far as the warm space would allow.

Kay was greedy, even as Hannah's hungry tongue, thick with her tastes, dipped into the smooth folds inside. She combed her fingers into her lover's hair and pressed with a cry of frustration, opened her thighs a little wider.

Overwhelmed by too many feelings, she pulled Hannah away and brought her face to her own. Kay saw her own wetness, thick on her lover's lips and put out her tongue to taste her tang. Hannah's hand had supplanted her mouth and her fingers now grew slippery from the wet flesh they explored. Each discovery brought a cry of surprise in Kay's throat. Her eyes already dark, grew darker and her clinging fingers pinched whatever flesh they found.

Hannah's fingers circled unsure, her eyes questioned so Kay answered. She placed her hand over Hannah's and pressed. Hannah's eyes were full of wonder as her fingers rolled a slow come-hither in Kay's hot, sliding sex. They found the velvet thickness that forced Kay to coil like a spring, biting her lips pale in her teeth.

At another time Hannah might have been alarmed, for the sound in Kay's voice was of pain and surprise, but she knew the agony and ecstasy that broke inside her. She did not let her slip from her embrace as Kay's body writhed, thighs clamped tight on her buried fingers.

Kay twisted towards her, pinching Hannah's skin white with her fingers. A tree bent hard in the storm, her back arched, every leaf rattled white by the wind that threatened to tear her from the earth. The next gust blew hard and she called back at it. Gasping with first breaths. One breath, then two, then a third and half a word.

Eyes open to Hannah, full of love and wonder. Hannah who stroked her face. Hannah who kissed her breasts and tasted her body's wet secrets. And Hannah to whose neck she clung as their faces and lips pressed hot together.

Kay was helpless and vulnerable in a crash of emotions she could not contain. She drew up her knees and a great sob shook her body. She clung to Hannah as she shook again and a tear broke free from her tight shut eyes.

Hannah felt the wave of ecstasy break on Kay's body but as it drew away, she puzzled at her tears, then comforted her, shushing her quietly.

"Oh sweetheart. Baby! It's alright, it's ok, Shu.. shu..shuush," Hannah crooned softly, kissing Kay's hair as her sobs grew less and tension drifted from her. "Shu.. shush."

Hannah was overwhelmed, not just by the intimacy of the moment but by the rush of love she felt for Kay. Her own heart beat hard because in that instant she realised she was bound to this beautiful, tender spirit that had surrendered herself to her.

As they lay in naked silence, she listened to Kay's breathing slow. Her body was limp against hers, safe in her protection. Kay stirred to slide her leg over hers and wriggled her face into the crook of Hannah's neck.

Hannah wanted to speak of her love, but as she began Kay made her own 'Shu-ush' and reached to place her fingers to Hannah's lips, finding a silenced kiss there instead.

Hannah pulled the covers over them both and kissed Kay's hair, content to let the words remain, for the moment, unspoken.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Miss K Nowak

Room 117

Dear Karolina

You are a wonderful, wonderful person - never forget that.

You know I had misgivings about starting another relationship so soon after that awful time on the boat. I need to clear my head and figure out who I am again. What happened yesterday will always be so precious to me and so will you. I am so deeply grateful to you for looking after me and being my friend. I don't what I would have done without you, truly.

I don't want to hurt you by running away like this, but neither do I want to deceive you by being only half a person - you deserve more and I hope you find it.

I can't think of anything else to say. I know you'll be upset by this just as I am writing it. Good luck sweetheart - I wish you only good things

Always your friend, Hannah x