I'VE GOT A LOVER; halsey

o n e

I found God

I found her in a lover

The music was ethereal. A thumping bass line that matched the pulse of the lights – dark purples, blues, reds, greens, making the mass of dancing, sweating bodies both magical and scary.

She was dancing with another girl when she saw her.

The other girl's hands were on her hips, her eyes closed, a flawless black line painted on each lid, her grey smoky shadow blending in perfectly, her painted lips parted slightly, and she was tilting her whole head upwards, as though the music, and the way she was grinding her body against someone else's was making her have a religious experience.

Or maybe it was the line of coke she'd seen the girl doing in the bathroom before that was doing that.

The girl leant in close, so that her lips brushed against her ear and whispered "I think I love you." She giggled. "Or maybe I just want to fuck you."

She sighed and removed her hands from around the girl's shoulders and neck, and slipped away from her embrace. The girl only briefly seemed pissed, before her eye caught somebody else's and she was dancing with them.

She pushed through the crowd, closer to the girl she'd seen before – the girl who'd had a drink in one hand, the other raised above her, her eyes closed as she danced between two guys, the girl whose eyes opened, locked on hers, and whose lips pulled up in a smirk, before she slipped between the two guys and seemed to disappear.

She needed to find her.

She kept stepping around people, pushing through them, looking, her heartbeat matching the bass.

It felt like hours, but it was most likely only minutes later that she felt a tap on her shoulder, and she turned around, to see the girl, smirking at her. "Looking for someone?" she mouthed.

Her own lips pulled up into a matching smile, and she wrapped her hand around the girl's wrist, pulling her along, out of the dancefloor, to the bar.

Both girls sat down at the bar, hopping up onto the bar stools, their knees - both bare due to the outfits they were wearing, one of which was patterned with a couple scrapes and a bruise - touching.

The girl set her now empty glass onto the bar top and signalled the bartender over for another. When he came, wrapping his hand around the glass, she simply winked at him, and he disappeared, reappearing moments later with two sparkly blue drinks, clinking with ice, a lemon perched on each lip and a black straw in each, and he set them down, leaving once more.

She couldn't help but notice that the blue of the drink matched the blue of the girl's hair. Maybe that's why she drank it.

The blue haired girl took a drink, set the glass down and smiled – it was more of a smile this time than a smirk – and reached over, brushing a lock of the other girl's platinum blonde hair – cropped short at the sides and slightly longer on top, an edgy, androgynous but pretty cut – to the side, her fingers cold and wet from the glass. "You're very pretty."

The blonde girl smiled back. "I'm Ophelia." She said.

The blue haired girl's smile grew, and became the kind of smile that said 'I know something you don't, if you're lucky, I'll tell you later', and Ophelia noticed her full, bow shaped lips were shimmering –painted a baby pink and covered in glittery sparkles. "Like the girl from Hamlet?"

Ophelia nodded, used to this comparison. Every high school had a Shakespeare season every year – and when it was, she'd been her English teachers' wet dream. "Like the girl from Hamlet."

"That didn't end up so good for her, did it?"

Ophelia laughed.

The blue haired girl picked up her drink again and pinched the straw between two fingers, raising it to her glittering lips and taking a long sip, draining it half way, putting it down, and running a hand through her long hair, pushing it away from her face, the turquoise waves choppy, mussed, beautiful, all before speaking again. "I'm Ashley. If it makes you feel any better, my last name sounds like a type of cake topping."

Ophelia nodded. "Seems like it'd suit you then."

Ashley's smile didn't waver as she raised one eyebrow, perfectly. "And why's that?"

Ophelia laughed again, though this laugh was teasing. Her eyes sparkled as she gently laid one hand on Ashley's shoulder, leant in and whispered in her ear "Because I love cake and everything to do with cake. I wanna eat it right up."

Ashley snorted a soft laugh, as Ophelia pulled away, before reaching out to place both hands either side Ophelia's face and pulling her in, so that their lips crashed together.

Ophelia thought Ashley was a very good kisser, and Ashley thought vice versa.

After that there was dancing. Grinding. Hands gliding up and gripping onto curves of the other's body. Fingers tangled in hair, cupping cheeks, holding waists. Lips against lips, kissing, biting. A taxi ride home. Ashley's apartment in darkness, stumbling through to the bedroom, where one curtain was closed and the other open, letting a street lamp and the moon shine in, bathing Ophelia's body in it's glow, as she fell backwards onto the bed, unclasping her bra and throwing it away to join her other discarded clothes. Bathing Ashley's body, as she arched herself over Ophelia like a predator, kissing her way from her lips and down south, her body writhing. A work of art.

A moan, as Ashley made hickeys on Ophelia's inner thighs, her lip gloss rubbing off so it sparkled on the tender, bruised skin. A gasp, a euphoric cuss word as Ashley's tongue went deep.

Ashley was louder than Ophelia had been when Ophelia did it back to her.

They woke up the next morning, tangled in the sheets and each other.

Sex, and sleep, had done something wonderful to their hair – Ophelia's sticking up in choppy tufts, Ashely's like a tangled mermaid's. Smudged make-up, dried sweat, hickeys everywhere.

And the sun that shone in seemed to make their skin shimmer as though there were millions of tiny diamonds embedded in both of them.

Ophelia feel in love then, that morning.

Ashely didn't. But she decided that she liked the sex she'd had with Ophelia enough that they should do it again sometime.

So, after Ophelia went down on Ashley once more, and she dressed and before she departed, they agreed Ophelia would return, tomorrow night.

That was how it began, five months ago.

Five months is such a long time to be hooking up with someone for casual sex and hiding the fact you wanted your lover to be your love.

Ophelia planned to tell Ashley how she felt, tonight.