Amidst the Misery

Chapter 11: Hearts Beat Loud

*****

Love, pushed to its edges.

"I have never gotten over

the consequence of you."

*****

She misses her.

It's a low hum ache compared to what it had been days, even hours, earlier. A steady thrum working its way up her chest.

Flight announcements crackle overhead, piercing the air with bureaucratic urgency that compels quickened footfalls and resets already anxious faces into deeper frowns.

There's a beleaguered father crouched on the floor helpless to retrieve his toddler son, who in his onesie wisdom, has interpreted the waiting area by the gate to be the ideal playground for hide and seek. The little boy is tucked under the seats-and behind the legs-of a pair of amused elderly Japanese businessmen, unbothered by their toppled suitcases that have become his wall of defence. The exchange of tiny giggles and ineffectual paternal sternness competes with the brimming chatter of a group of preteens, several rows over, decked out in matching school polo shirts. Broad smiles grace bright faces that are lit up by screens from which furious tapping sustain loosely contained laughter.

Uniformed airport personnel dot about while teams of pilots and crew move briskly and efficiently with practised grace through the milling crowds-like a flock of migrating swallows that flow as one, break and regroup in coordinated sequence.

But Jennie only gives passing attention to any of that rustling activity. Her line of sight, and the reason for her still thudding heartbeat, is locked on the figure currently absent from her hold.

No less than five minutes have passed, and the distance is no more than ten feet from where they were standing in a tight embrace, unwilling to let go, yet, Jennie feels a ridiculous sense of loss. Her hands hang uselessly by her side, empty of purpose.

Lisa is at the gate counter, quietly negotiating with the airline agent. Of what, Jennie isn't sure, still confused by the sudden absence, having missed the warmth of Lisa's body when it pulled away unannounced before she stalked to the counter with determination.

Jennie watches as the flustered agent struggles to keep up with Lisa's hushed demands. She can't fully see Lisa's face, only a fraction of her profile, but enough is within view to catch the telltale clenched jaw and minute muscle movement of the vein in her neck. Jennie bites back her amusement that Lisa's assailing is out of step with her appearance. Casual and comfortable in cuffed jeans and sweater, which is completely over-dressed for the heat wave that's lately gripped the city. Jennie's eyes widen discreetly and her stomach flutters recognising the pullover top as the cable knit sweater she had gifted Lisa.

A second staff member joins the defenceless first to offer assistance though not before giving a less than subtle once-over to the wool-clad brunette accosting them. Hair falling out of a loose bun and sweat beading down the side of Lisa's temple, the miscued wardrobe in ninety-eight degree temps draws ill-concealed judgment.

Jennie's instinct is to go over there and back Lisa up but before she can take a step, three pairs of eyes look her way. Two are blank of emotion, except for the edge of reined-in fatigue well-worn by those working in customer service, while the third gaze is soft and so incredibly gentle their fraught conversation might as well have been a discourse on flowers.

She gives a small wave, making eye contact with Lisa in silent ask, causing a smile to break across Lisa's lips-and her own to pull up in kind. Jennie's heart swoops at the marionette effect. The two agents unfortunately aren't as enamoured by Jennie's general existence, instead placating Lisa with tight nods of false empathy before shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders in the universal sign of "nothing we can do about it, ma'am."

The trio resume negotiations but make no more progress, the lack of resolution clear in Lisa's exasperated hand gestures. Jennie can hear her displeasure from here. But then, Lisa is in front of her again, just as quickly as she had left. There's a curious tinge of pink to her cheeks, a pretty bloom that makes the swooping worse.

"The flight is full," Lisa informs as if delivering the worst news in the world, looking askance and throwing one last glare of disappointment behind her, "there's a waitlist," lips curling in distaste of the concept. She harrumphs, "First class is fully booked and economy's on standby."

Her consternation marginally falls away when Jennie tugs gently at her shirt for attention and nearly dissolves at Jennie's soft smile.

"It's fine, babe," Jennie comforts, easily dropping the pet name without thought, the same mindlessness that has Lisa linking their fingers and brushing her thumb across the back of Jennie's hand. She reminds, "I've got a seat."

Expensive, the last one in business class, but nonetheless Jennie's name is very much on the passenger manifest. She doesn't understand Lisa's fret.

A pout shouldn't look so beautiful but the follow-up one Lisa gives is simply, unfairly so. In self-comfort, Lisa wraps arms around Jennie's waist, hooking hands behind the small of her back, pulling her closer.

Jennie scratches lightly at her stomach to soothe whatever disquiet that's made its way between them since her trip to the counter.

Lisa's eyes begin darting about, scanning above Jennie's head as though searching for alternative solutions to a problem that remains elusive. They are both on the same flight and-against the odds of how Jennie had thought her week would go-both travelling to London together. With her mobile still clutched in her hand and the voicemail still imprinted on her heart, she is elated about the turn of events.

Things could not have gone any better.

*****

Things had gone so horribly, inexplicably wrong.

Jennie did not expect her declaration of love to be met with, "I'm leaving for London." Not after another morning waking up in Lisa's arms. Not after an afternoon spent with Henry talking of the future she had envisioned with his daughter, their typical chess game extra animated with chatter about this and that plan. She realised too late that his mentions of the Queen weren't entirely about the wooden piece on their board.

Blindsided didn't do justice to how her stomach had plummeted at Lisa's reveal. But instead of letting Lisa explain, Jennie reactively went on the offence. Out of self-preservation. Out of pain. It was easier to accuse Lisa of deception than to stare down the fissures that still ran deep between them-to attend to the rawness in Lisa's voice, the gaping vulnerability, when it broke over unsaid words.

(Jennie didn't know 'I love you' could be so hurtful, and couldn't pinpoint if it was because Lisa hadn't said it back or if she had said them four years too late.)

Unprepared for the sound of a door slamming on their relationship when many doors should have otherwise been opened following her profession, Jennie turtled in. By the time her phone buzzed that night with messages from Lisa, Jennie was too far gone down the rabbit hole of drunken despair to bother a glance.

Jisoo and Hyuna's tag team consoling did nothing to loosen the vise-like grip of her heart. They struggled to keep up with her runaway irrationality which swung wildly between, "She can't break up with me if I don't answer," and sobs of, "There's nothing to break up if there was no relationship in the first place." Their reassurances fell on deaf ears, lost to uncontrolled sobbing, unable to quell the ache of her question, "How did I end up here again?"

The hopelessness did see a small reprieve some unknown hours later while she was sandwiched in bed between her snoring best friends. In a moment of clarity, with sleep out of reach, Jennie made two lists, resolving for the last six months to mean something. She wanted Lisa, no matter the city. Unfortunately, her courage was cocooned in alcohol. The cloud would dissipate by morning's half light.

The days of retreating silence that followed had been the longest and hardest of recent memory.

Unread texts then piled up, the count as high as the number of tissue boxes she went through by midweek. Just as well when Jennie felt ready to face the world again she dropped her phone right after an urgent situation came up at the Toronto gallery. She wasn't able to get it fixed until she returned to New York, days later, by then Lisa's last night before takeoff.

(A broken screen was the excuse anyways. Nothing to do with a broken heart too scared to make the call.)

Jennie attended Dawn's event a storm cloud of anger and hurt and confusion. How could she have misread all signs of reciprocation. How could Lisa look so soft and open, and most confusingly, full of longing, then shut the door on their future. How could Jennie be so in love still, after everything.

Her second chance of first love slipped right through her fingers. Aching and shattered, all Jennie could do was drown herself in cheap whiskey while the scent of Lisa's perfume made the yawning sky above the High Line an amber evening she never wanted to end. But bottom shelf alcohol and vanilla-infused pining were too heady to occupy the same space so she chose the former as not to be completely dismantled by the latter.

Their dance had been her one moment of weakness that sliced through the fog, the kiss an attempt to assuage her heart's lurching want.

When she tipped her chin up and then was met with the softness of gentle lips and the press of a familiar warmth, everything else faded into the background. The white glow of the hanging paper lanterns didn't register nor did the reverberating bass of the music and the delight of revellers moving in time to its beat. Only the hand in her hair and the other gently splayed across the small of her back commanded Jennie's attention. Focused solely on the way a set of ardent lips moved against her, on how a generous tongue and soft needy sounds rose above the sighs of prayers. They kissed and kissed until Jennie saw stars. It let her believe, for a moment, that the preceding months weren't wishful thinking or imagination's figment.

If only love could be communicated by such syntax, by such prose of night, the rest she could do without.

Soon after, however, as often the case when Lisa kissed her, Jennie lost track of time, in addition to her bearings. Her next memories involved someone removing her makeup and then the softest of pillows before a late afternoon sun and a splitting headache startled her into half-light consciousness.

Mouth dry and a thick film of regret on her tongue, she was ready to curse every life choice that led to this acute hangover when a sudden thought pushed its way past the stupor.

Lisa. Leaving. Today.

Jennie bolted out of bed, moving on autopilot with little regard for the jostling of her stomach's contents the erratic movements caused. The pieces weren't quite fitting yet, but her heart couldn't wait for her addled brain to catch up, driven forward only by the need to find Lisa. To make amends before an entire ocean kept them on opposite sides again.

It wasn't until she practically collided into a solid wall of leather and scowl at her front door minutes later, coming up against an unimpressed Rosé, that Jennie finally snapped out of her fugue state. The cognitive dissonance of Lisa's sister standing at the entrance of her loft worked better than the messy splash of cold water she had carelessly applied to her face after dashing from the bedroom.

The physical features of the Manoban siblings could not be anymore different, each set its distinct beauty, but the resemblance was most striking when Rosé tilted her head, boring eyes into Jennie with a muted intensity that made her ache for Lisa more. When she followed Rosé's questioning gaze to where it had moved down her body, it was likely best that Jennie was staring into brown instead of green. She gasped and flamed red at her pantless situation. The quirked eyebrow when Rosé looked back up was a genetic blueprint.

Gratefully, Rosé refrained from any blithe commentary about the lack of clothing, and also kept judgment to herself when Jennie clumsily raised on her toes to look over the shoulder of the elder Manoban hoping to see the younger one steps behind.

Jennie couldn't hide her crushing disappointment, eyes burning to find the hallway empty. Dread fell over her. The déjà vu too familiar. There had been only one other time when Rosé had visited her without Lisa; it was to sit quietly together the day after Lisa's flight took off four years ago. Nothing was said. Everything wrong.

Her chest constricted at what this visit could mean.

"I fucked up," she said.

Rosé looked at her for a drawn out moment. Agreement or annoyance or anger, Jennie couldn't tell. Maybe, likely, all three.

Before things could stretch into an unnerving silence, Rosé released a sigh filled with enough exasperated air to knock Jennie's socks off had she been wearing any. Annoyance, then.

"Lisa did too," Rosé verbalised at last, oblivious to the way Jennie's heart quickened at the smallest mention of Lisa's name. "Your competing idiocy is astounding," she informed, followed obliquely with, "A smartphone is only smart if you use it."

It was Jennie's turn to cock her head and lift an eyebrow, Rosé's point eluding her. She rubbed her eyes, trying to rid the lingering bleariness that was preventing a better grasp of their doorway encounter. Had she the mental acuity, Jennie might infer that, for two people who speak such a secret, profound language that most others spend a lifetime learning, she and Lisa were shit at basic communication.

Jennie stepped aside to let Rosé in the apartment, leading them to the couch where she proceeded to plop down in defeat, resting elbows on knees, hands clasped and head hanging heavy. Rosé remained standing. The hovering presence did little to ease the tension coursing through Jennie's body.

"I watched my sister become a ghost of herself and then run off to another continent," Rosé shared without prompt, once she decided to sit across from Jennie on the coffee table, setting down the motorcycle helmet Jennie hadn't noticed before. Her tone again did not give much away but Jennie's pulse accelerated once more, realising the conversation they were about to have, skipping right over niceties. Jennie had always appreciated Rosé's directness though was rarely prepared for it. "Lisa called me every Sunday. Close to two hundred Sundays, she didn't miss one."

The air stilled at their shared knowledge of the day's significance. Rosé eyed Jennie carefully then disclosed, "She also didn't mention you once."

Jennie looked up, fighting the burn building behind her eyes. Rosé's bluntness was never deliberately hurtful but she felt the sting all the same. Her stomach dropped.

"Ever since Lisa was fourteen, until she moved to London, there wasn't a day when she didn't talk about you, Jennie," Rosé continued, now with a disarming softness that unsettled Jennie more than any bite to her tone would have. "To suddenly not hear your name is a very loud silence."

Jennie could no longer hold back the wetness, a small sob escaping. Lisa had a habit of saying her name, almost excessively, yet unconsciously, dropping it into every other sentence. Not having the sound of Lisa's voice in her ear, let alone her name, was deafening.

"It was loud for me too."

Something of Jennie's sincerity-perhaps the slight shake of her voice-must have softened Rosé further because she turned uncharacteristically gentle. Tender almost. Rosé crouched forward to wipe a tear from Jennie's cheek. The unexpected affection conversely made more fall down, Jennie wishing for a different Manoban to be offering the comfort.

"Do you know when I heard your name again?" Rosé asked but didn't wait for the answer to her rhetorical question. "That Sunday after she met you for brunch, I found her sitting in her apartment in a daze with the first real smile on her face since moving back to New York." Jennie cracked a smile picturing Lisa's lopsided one, the sort of tilt that was only reserved for her. "She said your name," Rosé continued, looking to be fighting an eye roll, "and borrowing from my wife's eloquence, as if the sun blasted out of your fucking ass."

Jennie recalled her thermal meltdown from the real heat she felt that day at The Standard. Her sobs quieted knowing she wasn't the only one affected. Releasing a wet laugh, she quipped, "Chu's not wrong."

Rosé sent a doubtful glare, even if her sparing kindness had yet to leave the corner of her eyes.

"I don't want her to go," Jennie softly voiced seconds later, the sound coming out no louder than a hush. After letting out a tight, shuddery breath, she sniffled back her emotion and used her t-shirt sleeve to wipe her nose. "I've been trying to make it right," she looked down to her lap at her clasped hands, then on a more somber note, beseeching for an explanation, "I thought I was getting there, Sé."

Not one for sports, it didn't occur to her that she might have been aiming at the wrong goal posts. She was so far off from the reconciliation she supposed they were heading towards, so focused on moving forward to not have considered how the past, and unattended wounds, would hamper their momentum, or altogether change the course.

When Jennie re-met Rosé's gaze, she didn't know how to read her expression. Rosé's eyes were the colour of Lisa's hair, a deep auburn that on closer inspection revealed shades of honey and caramel sweeter and less strident than their owner's usual temperament. Presently, they stared at her with penetrating consideration.

"I thought Lisa wanted me too," Jennie whispered, her voice thinning further under the weight of the lump in her throat.

Their morning kisses and midnight cuddles told Jennie that it wasn't a one-sided attachment, every touch mutual and wholly desired. The unconcealed glances and unchecked smiles strengthened the case.

"God help her executive dysfunction when it comes to you," Rosé finally did roll her eyes before relaying with seriousness, "It's not my place to say-that's on Lisa-but trust that some things are exactly what they seem. Others not."

Another Rosé riddle. As Jennie mulled the double-speak, Rosé moved to sit next to her. Jennie was taken aback for a second at the sitting posture, disciplined yet graceful. Another familiarity.

She tried to swallow the rueful reminder.

"What does that mean?" Jennie asked, not capable in her state of unpacking the implications.

More staring. Then disconcerting quiet. When it looked like nothing further would be said, Jennie took it as the end of the conversation, concluding that they had reached the extent of their loosely defined almost-sisters pact, exhausting Rosé's finite patience and the reserve of words they would limitedly exchange in a year.

"Call her."

The solution seemed so obvious but also, terrifying. Her pulse ticked up, a wave of nerves washing over.

"I can't," Jennie started to protest but then was quick to clarify seeing the subtlest shift of Rosé's eyebrow raised in challenge, "I can't do it over the phone. I need to find her," she emphasised. "Do you know where she is? Has she already left?"

After a stretch of silence, Rosé glanced at her watch which Jennie thought signalled her imminent leave, but for the second time in a week, the actions of a Manoban girl surprised her. Rosé removed her coat and settled more comfortably on the couch, then shoved Jennie off of it.

Jennie stumbled and struggled to find her footing before standing up, confused and helpless. On a disgruntled breath, Rosé provided her next move, firmly instructing, "Put on some goddamn pants, Kim," without looking up from the phone she had pulled out.

As Jennie withdrew to the bedroom to follow through on the non-negotiable command, Rosé's muttering trailed her dragging steps, "Lisa might find your paleness endearing. I don't. And neither will TSA."

The reference didn't compute until Jennie returned, legs covered, to find Rosé on the British Airways website. She bit back her smile. Hope bloomed in her chest for the first time in days, despite her recent record with misjudged expectations.

Not being the technically-skilled half of Kim-Manoban, it took some roundabout clicking for the luddite to trawl the BA site to find the right info. Rosé didn't know Lisa's flight details outside of a vague awareness of the departure time and couldn't be bothered to scroll back up their texting history to find it. So when she succeeded in tracking Lisa's whereabouts and which JFK terminal, Jennie practically hug-attacked her, which she calmly dodged with a raised hand that clearly cautioned against breaching any personal space.

Jennie shrugged off the rejection. She didn't care, only wanting to get to Lisa. But simply showing up at the airport didn't seem enough, or a sound plan; a contingency was needed. She directed Rosé to the website's booking section but, unsurprisingly, faced resistance.

Rosé looked down at her shirt above the breast area then back to Jennie and asked her pointedly, "Do you see something I don't?"

Jennie paused to scan for anything out of place of the very nice, and probably expensive, blouse. Coming up short, she hesitantly shook her head, "No?"

"That's a relief," Rosé deadpanned, "for a second, I thought I was wearing an invisible name tag with Customer Service on it."

Not above begging, Jennie pleaded with what she hoped were the biggest, bluest eyes she could muster, "Please."

"So fucking dramatic, both of you."

Some more colourful, under-breath cursing later, the reluctant travel agent secured her a seat on Lisa's flight as well. The confirmation landed in Jennie's inbox within seconds of the last-minute purchase.

Normally, Jennie would balk at the business class price but she was too busy smacking a kiss on a high cheekbone and ignoring Rosé's murderous displeasure, to take note. (Use of Rosé's credit card details also escaped her notice.)

Excitement thrumming, Jennie's focus shifted to the next task, getting to the airport. But before she could form the first syllables asking for a ride, Rosé preemptively cut her off, perfect mascara eyes narrowed in warning, "I draw the line at personal transportation."

"But," Jennie tried anyways, casting a lingering look at the helmet.

"No." Rosé dismissed with a dangerous tone and another wave of her hand. "Youtube how to solder and get Jisoo to invent a jetpack for your commute. I'm done."

While Jennie ridiculously considered the serious merits of the proposal, Rosé started to tap away on her phone.

"Remind Lisa she owes me a bottle of whisky," Rosé instructed without context. "She's not picking up, probably in transit."

Jennie winced at the mention of alcohol, a slight queasiness returning that she wilfully ignored but helped anyhow to set her feet in motion.

Hasty packing ensued. In minutes, heart thudding, Jennie was sprinting out. She caught Rosé off-guard and succeeded this time to pull her into a sideways hug on the way past. Rosé briefly surrendered to it, even allowing Jennie to squeeze her thanks, before pushing her away.

In the rush to grab only essential items, the two lists being top priority, Jennie did not see the post-it note that had fallen by the side of her bed with a plea to check her voicemail and return Lisa's call.

After an overpaid, hurried cab ride to JFK, she bounced nervously through checkin and security, and was overjoyed to make it to their gate in ample time before boarding.

She must have appeared like a madwoman to other passengers, running through the airport, backpack swaying side to side, neither motions natural in the least. But when Lisa came into view at their gate, the effort was worth every strained breath and judgmental stare. Jennie was ready to sink to her knees to beg Lisa to stay-and if that wasn't possible-just as prepared to leave with her.

A third option never occurred to Jennie, that Lisa wanted to come home. To her. She hadn't expected to learn that Lisa's plans not only included her but that Jennie was her plan. When Lisa's hand went to steady her by the hip and the other held the phone to her ear, she knew. London was never Lisa's home.

The voicemail loosened something in Jennie's chest.

A weight finally lifted.

*****

The new weightlessness is what draws her back into the present. While taking stock of what had transpired, Jennie hadn't noticed that Lisa took over carrying her backpack.

An arm remains wrapped securely around her as Jennie stands half leaning into Lisa's shoulder. There is barely any distance between them now but the gap is still too much. Lisa has long set the standard for the way Jennie's heart would beat, but this sets a new record for overworking itself in her presence. Lisa is looking somewhere further afield over Jennie's shoulder while a restless foot taps a mindless rhythm. Distracted. Completely unaware of being the source of skipped heartbeats.

Before she can second-guess herself, Jennie turns fully into her, shortening the distance that feels too much despite its nonexistence. While Lisa's gaze continues to flit about, not noticing the new proximity, Jennie tips on her toes to steal a soft, quick peck to the corner of her mouth. A hitch of breath alights her to Lisa's returned attention.

"Hey," Jennie says softly when green eyes settle on her again, earning an impossibly fond smile. Lisa squeezes her waist before pulling her flushed, like she also just realised the scant inches between them are excessive.

Jennie's heart hammers from the gentle, possessive touch, but it isn't given an opportunity to slow nor do her feet get a chance to replant on the ground when Lisa cups her face and then tilts her head for a fuller, slower kiss. Achingly slow. The toe curling kind. Moving past her initial surprise, Jennie returns the kiss brush for brush, sigh for sigh.

Their plane might as well take off without Jennie, she's already floating above the atmosphere.

"Hi," Lisa whispers when she at last grants them some air. Only briefly though. Not a second later, she leans in an infinitesimal amount to seal in another kiss, introducing tongue this time that takes every ounce of effort for Jennie not to escalate into a full-on makeout session.

Somewhere between the voicemail ending and Jennie launching herself into Lisa's arms, they have hit the reset button once more, though this time it feels like a marked turn towards permanence. With clearer eyes and fuller hearts, there's tacit agreement to pick up, at least nonverbally, right where they left things off before the implosion of a week and a half ago. Jennie knows they'll need to process the circumstances and the emotions that precipitated their mutual panic-as well as the meaning of her yes to Lisa's question-but that's for later. For now, she soaks up their physical connection, intent on not squandering precious lost time to doubt and regret.

Affection swells when she catches the red tips of Lisa's ears when they break again, a likely outcome from a joint inability to keep hands to themselves.

"Hello," Jennie says while rounding her arms around Lisa's neck. Her next words and their continued greeting game are interrupted, however, when one of the earlier agents walks by and gives Lisa the most unimpressed, passive aggressive look a distant member of the British empire can sport, chiding head shake included. Unflinchingly, Lisa stares him down until he scurries on his way, hastening his steps.

"I wanted to sit next to you," Lisa grumbles, finally offering an explanation, avoiding Jennie's curious eyes. "When Cris wouldn't accommodate, I called their seating plan homophobic. He wasn't too happy about that."

Jennie laughs and resists the temptation to tease Lisa's misplaced indignation. She also has to keep in check her endearment of the way Lisa's nose adorably scrunched up at his name.

"Let's sit," she suggests instead, catching sight of a pair of seats that just opened up.

Lisa assents but dismisses Jennie's reach for the backpack, shifting its weight on her shoulder while grabbing her rolling carry-on and entwining their hands once more. Jennie's amusement at her stubborn chivalry gives way to a swooning when Lisa dips her head for a third kiss before tugging them forward.

Airport furnishings are some of the most banal forms of public seating, a hit and miss between convenience and comfort, but as she and Lisa wait for their boarding calls, Jennie is ecstatic to have found a set designed with a flexible armrest. She promptly lifts it out of the way and curls into Lisa.

After settling their luggage, Lisa is just as eager for Jennie to retake her position nestled by her side. Jennie's hand instinctually wanders under Lisa's sweater. They sit in quiet synchrony; Lisa rubbing her back in slow passes that match the tempo of Jennie's drawing movements on Lisa's stomach. Her pulse is timed to the stuttering sounds that she can hear where her head is laid atop Lisa's chest.

Since their romantic reunion can't happen properly in front of such a public audience, Jennie makes due with whatever conciliatory contact and displays of affection they could get away with until private quarters permit fuller expression of how ridiculously happy she is to be in Lisa's arms again.

As they patiently wait for the boarding calls, heat pools low in her stomach at the intimate possibilities to come.

She craves to reunite with Lisa in ways that have their bodies grasping for air and each other, for love to be pronounced in every line drawn by searching lips and every blaze left by unyielding hands. To be touched and kissed and pushed past breaking points; to succumb to the soft violence of a shattering tenderness and then be remade again and again. To reassure as much in shared rapture as in corresponding declarations, without a trace of doubt, that they are both irrefutably, irrevocably, in mutual love.

But stolen glances and stolen kisses to chin and cheek are what's permissible at the moment, and for now, must do their Herculean best as meagre levees to keep the sea of want from drowning them both.

It leaves Jennie wondering, how could something-someone-be never enough and altogether more than. Fortunately, it's not a question that requires an immediate answer, or even one at all.

Settling back into the familiar physics of two bodies that will always gravitate to each other, she takes her hand out from under Lisa's sweater, only for it to be immediately met, without signal, by its counterpart-fingers eager to interlace with hers and minimise loss of contact.

They take up a game of twining and untwining, chasing the spaces in between fingers, opening and closing gaps. The hand on Jennie's back hasn't stopped its soothing motion, between the broad strokes there and the gentle play of thumbs, she feels an eddying sense of contentment.

"I'm happy," she tells Lisa in a hushed tone incongruently small compared to the significance of her confession and the spread of warmth the feeling elicits.

"Me too," is returned without a beat, breathed into Jennie's hair. Lisa's voice just as quiet, just as enamoured.

A considerable amount of emotional shifting has happened in the span of an hour. There's been a rearrangement of so much metaphorical baggage that needs proper unpacking. Outside of an affirmative that Jennie will join Lisa for the trip, no decisions have been made or conclusions drawn about what happens next. Regardless, there is one inviolable truth that'll underpin however they move forward. A week and half apart and a severe misunderstanding hasn't lessened her attachment to Lisa. It's done the opposite, strengthening tenfold that, as they sit in silent commune through reconnecting touches, Jennie risks drowning in its intensity if her feelings aren't vocalised.

She lifts her head to find Lisa's gaze already steady on hers, a fondness in her smile and brightness in her eyes that could power all of JFK's electric grid. Jennie gulps nervously.

"Lisa, I lov-" she attempts but Lisa swallows the rest of her sentence with a kiss.

A hand comes up to cup the back of her neck as Lisa's lips move against hers. Jennie falls easily into the distraction, forgetting within seconds the use of her mouth for anything other than receiving Lisa's tongue. Her cheeks heat and hands get clammy, reflexively seeking out Lisa's skin under her sweater once more. Jennie twists in her seat to soften the angle while her hand imprints into the hollow of Lisa's ribs.

For the next indeterminate minute, nothing else exists but their slide of lips and the effect of Lisa's body curving into hers as Jennie bends and folds in return. Any awareness of propriety is lost to their accelerated breathing and the hammering of her heart when they find their rhythm.

The rush in her ears is shortly overtaken, however, by encouraging cheers and cheeky whistles from several of the school group's less mature teenagers. Given her and Lisa's enthusiasm, Jennie honestly can't fault theirs. The interruption is well timed anyways, she rationalises, lest they want the public showing to inevitably find its way onto social media.

"Could we hold off?" Lisa asks after she pulls back following a last slow suck of tongue that contradicts her appeal for restraint. Her eyes don't leave Jennie's lips, looking contrite for both cutting the kiss and Jennie's words short. The hand on Jennie's neck moves higher to massage the apology into her hair, fingers writing absently as if leaving notes of their kiss for later pickup. Jennie's eyes flutter closed at the gentleness before reopening to an adoring gaze. "We should talk first, once we're in London. It's been messy and I'd really like a redo of that conversation. I owe you so much more than three words, and I want to be able to say them back and follow through without interruption. If that's okay?"

Still a step behind in her hazy recollection of who and where she is, Jennie is entirely incapable of a verbal response. She nods. Lisa kisses the tip of her nose and then her beauty mark, more bookmarks for later.

With what appears to be unbearable reluctance, Lisa untangles from their pretzel shape, looking physically pained to step away. She whispers, "Be right back," as soft in Jennie's ear as the smile she gives before mysteriously disappearing out of sight just beyond the next gate over.

Jennie wants to protest her departure but wisely uses the separated minutes to regulate her breathing and heartbeat. Lisa swiftly returns from her mini adventure, bag in hand, before either functions have a chance to normalise.

When Jennie peers inside of the haul once Lisa retakes her seat, a warmth rebuilds in Jennie's chest to find a choice selection of her favourite snacks, alongside a packet of red vines for Lisa, that's routine to their past travel habits. She pecks her on the cheek for the thoughtfulness.

Aimless minutes pass thereafter, a mix of people-watching and quiet-conversing as hands find each other again. There's been a minor issue with their flight's luggage hold that is pushing back their takeoff. While other passengers groan at the hold-up, they relish the extra time to indulge in one another. Engaging in conspiracy theories has always been a favourite pastime during long waits while travelling. They spend the delay coming up with the most creative backstories of the people crossing their field of vision.

Perhaps the young father and his son are on their way for a surprise visit to reunite with his wife, who's overseas on a business trip. Being a modern, feminist husband, he gladly partakes in childrearing and feels no threat to his masculinity that she advances her career while he's the one holding the sippy cup as their toddler falls asleep on his lap. The pair reminds Jennie of Dawn and Tyro's bond. She smiles at the picture of Dawn similarly posed, a tiny fist wrapped around his index finger.

They take turns like this ascribing circumstances, motivations, and personality traits to passersby, giggling at the improbability of some speculations and debating the plausibility of others.

Lisa wins handily for her colourful assessment of the two Japanese businessmen, who exhibit a subtle intimacy between them belying of their reserved professional carriage. She convinces Jennie they are defacto defected spies formerly employed for Japan's imperial king, running away together. The floral pattern of their matching silk pocket squares, by her estimation, is clear evidence of their allegiance to the Chrysanthemum Throne and Emperor Akihito, while their leather briefcases, understated but for the elaborate fingerprint lock, discreetly discloses their employment as intelligence operatives.

"Obviously, Jennie."

Lisa tells her that it's their socks and the matching handkerchiefs, however, which are the dead giveaway; one set imprinted with the sakurasou flower, meaning desire and desperate, long-lasting love, and the other pair spotted with both yellow and white tsubaki, meaning longing and waiting.

"They've waited a long time to be together," Lisa narrates, a wistfulness to her recounting. Her tone is light but Jennie doesn't miss the striking parallel. "Years carrying each other in their hearts but never spoken or acted upon."

"What do you think kept them apart?"

"Fear, maybe wanting to protect the other," Lisa replies, but then must realise she's veering too close to their own story, so makes a U-turn out of personal territory. "Duty, honour, that sort of thing."

"They did it for their people," Jennie contributes, going along with the fiction. From the tailored slacks and the crisply pressed lines of the gentlemen's suits to their dapper coiffure and impeccable posture, it's easy to buy into the narrative that they work for a secret elite agency. Or two very gay men.

"Yes," Lisa continues, "Now, with decades of service behind them, they can finally choose heart over head and retire to the countryside."

"Of England?" Jennie balks, failing to mute the scepticism in her voice.

"Yes, in Yorkshire, where one can start an herb garden and the other opens a wagashi shop."

Jennie laughs at the visual. "Because there's an untapped market for Japanese confectionery in the rolling hills and ancient woodlands of Yorkshire."

"Absolutely. English tea and Japanese artisan sweet cakes, London hipsters and weekenders will be clamouring for this perfect marriage between west and east." Lisa licks her lip, gaining momentum with her vision. "The herb gardener will grow specialty plants for the baker's signature mori and nerikiri. And in the off season or when tourism is low, they teach knife skills to the locals, who are thoroughly impressed by their deadly precision. How to Thinly Slice a Potato is their most popular class. While evenings are spent by the fire reviewing so-and-so's raised suspicions and retelling stories about past assignments."

"Sounds idyllic." Jennie smiles but reality catches up to her a beat later, "Wait," she levels Lisa with her own suspicious look, "How do you even know what a mori or nerikiri is?"

"GBBO," Lisa answers, a contagious glint in her eye that widens Jennie's smile even as she doesn't quite grasp the acronym. "You'll see."

They resume their earlier cuddled position. Jennie noses against Lisa's pulse and hums into its steadiness.

"I can't imagine that many years, so close together but not able to ..." Jennie doesn't know how to finish the sentence. She amends, "That's a long time to wait for someone."

Lisa hums agreement, a gentle squeeze of Jennie's hand and a light kiss to her temple before she starts rubbing her back again. The lulling comfort induces a heaviness that has Jennie resting her head into the crook of Lisa's neck and shoulder.

"I would." She faintly hears as her eyes shutter close, and she slips into a nap.

-

"God, when did I become this hopelessly sappy, co-dependent romantic?" Lisa wonders as the boarding calls for the flight finally commences. She playfully clings to Jennie's waist as if fearful British Airways will come to forcibly separate them.

Fighting off the koala, Jennie tips her head back to lift a disbelieving eyebrow at Lisa's self-evident question. Jennie is certain Lisa came out of the womb swaddled in maple syrup. Her molecular composition is 80% gay and 20% goo.

She ignores the loudspeaker entreaty for first and business class passengers to board, choosing instead to squeeze out the last minutes with Lisa before impending class division. There's more compelling interest in extending this conversation than hurrying to sequester herself in a tin can with three hundred other people.

"Babe, you practically bleed sap," she scoffs. "All the times you flowered me?"

Since Jennie isn't a fan of live flowers dying in a vase for brief enjoyment, Lisa resorted to documenting them and sending her flower nudes (taken in the wild in their natural habitat, and not the kind of nude that Jennie had initially been excited about). The floral portraits came with handwritten notes of their characteristics she'd associate with Jennie. In high school, Jennie would find such cards slipped into her locker; in college, tucked inside her sketchbooks. Jennie's graffiti promposal had a layered meaning behind the choice of blossoms she had creatively interpreted, based on Lisa's words and photographs.

"I am unapologetically sentimental."

"No argument here," Jennie says. Lisa seems to preen at the confirmation. Her pride, however, turns to affront when Jennie follows up with, "Labelling you saccharine is tantamount to calling you salty."

Lisa bristles, "Yeah, we'll see how well you cope when you're cut off from this sweetness."

Jennie laughs off the empty threat, though as recent history has shown, she's guaranteed to go into pitiful withdrawal if Lisa's affection turn elsewhere. It's not a situation she wants to revisit anytime soon, or ever again.

"Sweet in the sheets but fierce in the field," Jennie teases. She pinches Lisa's side but tucks her elbows in against the anticipated counter-attack. Lisa's reflexes, unfortunately, are quicker than Jennie fails to remember, succeeding to skate long fingers over her most sensitive spots. They giggle like love-struck teenagers waging a tickle war. "Such unassuming rage from the tiny mountain," Jennie huffs out between laughter.

"The pitcher's mound," Lisa corrects, poking at her sides in a final reprimand as Jennie surrenders by kissing under her chin. "My controlled emotions is what made me a great leader, Jennie."

"Because there's no crying in baseball, Commander," Jennie offers, latching onto a random detail about the sport that she only recalls because Lisa used to quote from that one weird movie with a confusingly accented Madonna and a surprisingly athletic Rosie O'Donnell.

"There isn't."

"Ok, Lis."

Whatever rebuttal Lisa may have had loses out to the boarding announcement as the last of the zones are called. She pulls Jennie closer into her arms.

"We haven't even step foot on the plane yet and I already miss you," Lisa laments with a dramatic throw of her head back that makes Jennie chuckle.

Despite the fake hysterics meant to lighten their mutual anxiety, Jennie nonetheless feels her insides tightening. She glances at the queue where some latecomers have breathlessly raced towards. Jennie and Lisa are the last remaining stragglers.

"It's only a seven hour flight," Jennie downplays. "It's okay. We've gone longer apart," she says casually, but immediately regrets it when Lisa perceptibly stiffens at her inadvertent reminder of their break-up.

Jennie's stomach sinks at her gaffe, scared to have set them back. Fortunately, the damage appears minimal. Seemingly shaking it off, Lisa kisses the top of her head. The tenderness then travels south and before Jennie realises, she's moving her lips against the tide of sweetness-ending their prior argument with conclusive proof that Lisa does indeed store honey in her veins.

"Yeah, we'll be okay."

-

Jennie is not okay.

Seven hours and eight rows.

After four years apart and six months of various states of together, it's eight rows that separate them. Her business seat is plenty roomy and the leather much softer and kinder on her back than when she had flown last summer, yet, there's nothing luxurious about her current predicament when her understanding of comfort is one cabin class over.

She's never been a proponent of class division in travel but finds herself particularly aggrieved today by the curtain that cuts off her visibility to Lisa's seat.

A huff escapes Jennie's lips for the tenth time in less than a minute, loud enough to grab the flight attendant's attention. A tall woman of uniform crispness looks over, eager to dispel any signs of discomfort under her charge. Jennie sits up straight as if she had caught the eye of her high school principal, whose hair was similarly pulled back in a tight bun. The military precision would be intimidating if not for the well practised smile she gives Jennie, developed over years of passenger management and conflict diffusion.

"Everything alright, ma'am?" She asks Jennie with an easy balance of professional distance and affable warmth. Her eyes are open even if her rigid posture indicates a running list of more important things to tend to before takeoff than Jennie's emotional instability.

Jennie holds her gaze for an extended second, not sure how to articulate that she's not quite alright because Lisa is too far away when they've only just reconnected, how she misses the feel of her hand that hadn't left Jennie's touch until airfare classicism forced them apart, how Jennie's mind has been in a looping pattern of thinking about the voicemail, remembering Lisa's kisses, wanting more, and needing to have their conversation about what post-London entails.

"Water?" is all that ends up coming out. The attendant appears relieved and pleased that Jennie's request is small and entirely within her purview to accommodate.

Jennie deflates but then, taking one last glance back at the curtain, she comes to a decision. "Actually, can I also get an extra blanket, please?"

When the attendant returns with the water and blanket, she can only look on confused when Jennie gets up from her seat after downing her drink in one go, grabs her bag from the overhead compartment, takes the blanket with her free hand and marches with purpose past the partitioned area.

"Jennie?" Lisa asks startled, stopping mid-conversation with her seat neighbour, as Jennie shifts anxiously on her feet in the aisle.

Jennie smiles at her but then directs her next words to the passenger to Lisa's left, a kind-looking woman in her late 40s whose head is likewise tilted up in curiosity. All signs thankfully point to her travelling alone, the third passenger in their row looking disinterestedly at the safety card and not paying the woman or Jennie's interruption any attention.

"Can I interest you in a business class seat?" Jennie slightly turns and points ahead, two sets of eyes follow the direction of her finger.

The woman catches on quickly when Jennie steals a glance to Lisa, a plain look of adoration overtaking her face and a hint of embarrassment colouring her cheeks.

"They have champagne up there, the seat reclines to a flat bed, and I think the meal choices are seared fillet of British beef or orange cured salmon. If you don't mind, um, I would like to sit with my-" Jennie pauses her bartering to take a deep breath before firmly committing, locking eyes with Lisa, "my girlfriend."

"Of course," the woman smiles knowingly and with dry British humour, accepts the generous offer, "I was looking forward to potato mash and day-old bread but I supposed I can make do."

Lisa gets up to let her out.

"Lovely to meet you, Lisa," she says after vacating her seat, and they share a secret smile that's not so difficult to decipher its hidden meaning with her parting words, "and you too, Jennie."

"Couldn't stay away, huh?" Lisa asks, not bothering to hide the quirk of lips as she helps to put Jennie's backpack in the overhead. She returns to her seat, scooting one over to let Jennie have the aisle.

"I don't mind the potato mash either." Jennie shrugs, looking shyly away, even if she can't keep the triumphant smile off her face from a successful play at seat rearrangement. (Cris will be so mad.)

"Just the mash and not your girlfri ..." Lisa's witty response trails off when Jennie hands her the extra blanket.

Another shrug, more eye contact avoidance. "You get cold."

"Honestly, I'd much prefer a different heating system." Lisa lifts up the armrest that separates their seats.

Jennie collapses into the open invitation and hides in the crook of Lisa's neck, too shy to admit to her next level co-dependency.

"I can't spend seven hours without this," Jennie confesses in the end.

"Without what?" Lisa eggs her on.

In a bold move, careless of the public display, Jennie slips a hand behind Lisa's neck and connects their lips in a way that sparks a charge starting in her toes and has Lisa's hand blindly seeking her waist. The kiss is chaste and features only the merest suggestion of tongue but nonetheless, the fire travels the length of her body.

"That." Jennie fills in after they part, a hushed tone to match Lisa's quiet shallow breathing. "I miss you."

"I miss you too."

-

"Jennie?"

"Hmmm," Jennie answers, a muffled sound against the yarn of Lisa's sweater, head propped on her shoulder that's wrapped in the cheap wool of BA's blanket. A squint at the onscreen display tells her it's only been an hour since takeoff, the plane now humming at a cruising altitude. She shifts and burrows in closer to the warmth, trying to find a cosier spot that isn't sharp collarbone. Lisa strokes her hair while helpfully making incremental adjustment of her upper body. Although they are as leaned into each other as is comfortably possible in the tight confines, it isn't enough.

There's a nervous beat where Lisa is tapping her fingers against her thigh and Jennie can hear her deep inhale before the quiet, soft question comes. It's faintly audible above the whooshing noise of cabin air and would have gone unheard if Lisa hadn't asked it near the shell of Jennie's ear, lips skating against her skin for a fraction of insufficient contact that sends tingles down her spine.

"Will you go on a date with me?"

Not expecting it, Jennie can't help but laugh. She lifts her head, undoing their hard work of the last minute, and playfully asks, a callback to her fever-induced wooing, "Platonic or romantic?"

"I was thinking," Lisa starts, eyes distractedly landing on her lips. Too fleeting of a moment later with some difficulty of leave, they re-journey back to re-establish eye contact, the most tender gaze igniting a static charge between them. Absorbed in green, Jennie nearly misses the rest of the sentence, "the cosmic kind."

"I didn't realise this was an intergalactic flight."

"There's this documentary I wanted to see about the sky. I got a google alert that they'll have a special screening at the Barbican," Lisa shares, sidestepping Jennie's teasing, excitement rising in her voice. "It's an amazing Brutalist building from the 60s that's worth a visit alone."

Lisa rambles on about the merits of the architecture, her sales pitch hailing enthusiasm for the arts centre that is supposedly one of Europe's best example of post-war utopianism as well as being a world-class cultural destination. As her narration becomes breathless about coarse concrete surfaces and elevated gardens and brick pathways, Jennie simply smiles into Lisa's skin. The Barbican could be a hole in the ground filled with crushed asphalt for all she cares and Jennie would still want to go with her.

"I'll go anywhere you want me to," she whispers, eyes heavy and drifting close. "Ground or sky."

-

"Lisa, please," she whimpers, the ache building.

"Jennie," is muffled back, the sound coming distantly. Odd.

She jogs her hips anyways, an instinctual answer.

Her name is called again. Maybe even moaned. She grinds down, pushing against the body underneath, increasing the pressure.

When Jennie opens her eyes after making particularly pleasurable contact, she doesn't expect to find Lisa's shocked expression, face a deep blush, pupils blown. The tips of Lisa's ears have reached a critical shade of red that Jennie only clocks why when she's suddenly conscious of the placement of her hands on Lisa's breasts.

In return, Lisa lightly strokes the back of her bare thighs. Testing boundaries that have already been surpassed.

Hearts pound, chests heave.

A tattered pair of cutoff jean shorts was all Jennie barely managed to pull on before abandoning Rosé in her apartment to go chase a girl. The same girl who presently is looking up at her, just as disoriented by their situation, just as questioning to have inadvertently breached an invisible privilege of intimacy they have yet to reclaim. Lisa's hands stop right below Jennie's ass, the heat of her touch an intense simmer.

She seems to be pulsating with effort not to move higher. Jennie likewise fights the urge to push forward, seeking release in full view of their fellow air passengers-wait, what?-people who are strangely no longer there, she realises after jerking her head around.

It takes several seconds for her to determine their whereabouts.

They are in London. Lisa's apartment, on her couch. It comes slowly back to Jennie then, a vague recollection of de-planing then moving robotically through Heathrow-border control, baggage claim-before shuttling into the city on the underground. Calls of "Mind the gap" filter through the fog, along with indeterminate scenes of bustling crowds and chimneyed houses. She followed Lisa every step of the way, Lisa not once letting go of her hand as they weaved through airport concourses and train platforms and pedestrian traffic, until they finally reached the blue door Jennie thought she'd never see again.

But with the exhaustion from their red-eye journey, she wasn't in the right frame of mind to duly appreciate the significance of finally gaining entrance to the other side of this door.

The last thing Jennie remembers is a kiss to her forehead as she laid down on the first horizontal surface within reach. They both must have fallen asleep thereafter. Both having very vivid dreams, apparently. She doesn't recall rolling atop of Lisa or placing a leg between hers.

Stunned for what to do next, her companion isn't of any help, only continuing to stare back like a deer in headlights. Albeit, the most insanely attractive deer, mouth parted and a silent question hanging from the plumpest of lips.

There are two options. One, they disentangle from their pretzel shape. Two, they don't.

Jennie imagines Lisa's hand travelling up inside her shorts to find wetness waiting. By the throbbing sensation there, it wouldn't take more than a few decisive pumps of fingers and some tactical thrusting to get Jennie off. A crash and burn of broken cries as Jennie returns the favour with her mouth hungrily lapping up Lisa's arousal.

The thought is tempting. It's a tangible bliss she can almost taste from visualisation alone. Her hips move of their accord that Lisa voluntarily reciprocates by canting hers to meet them. Lisa's fingers incidentally graze under her shorts with their joint movements but she doesn't initiate anything else.

Eyes darkening further, Lisa expels, "Jennie," a plea to be put out of her misery with any sort of resolution than this in-between state.

It's the bite of lip that does it. Giving in, Jennie kisses her soundly, all tongue and teeth and desperation. Whimpering noises exchange for nips and licks as desire takes over, caution overthrown. Mouths reconnect in ways that make breaths shallow and hearts palpitate, an irregular beat that Jennie has sorely missed over the last seven days.

Panting, she has to forcefully stop at the feel of a tugging of her shorts, putting a hand to Lisa's chest to create much needed distance before post-flight, pre-shower sex becomes a reality. Jennie sits up straight, straddled on Lisa's stomach, struggling to regain her composure. Struggling not to selfishly use Lisa's abs to satisfy her own need.

"Sorry," Lisa expresses, regretful, but her fixed gaze on Jennie's mouth says otherwise. She looks ready to flip Jennie around to do unapologetic things to her. "I didn't mean to get carried away."

They both ignore the lie.

"No, it's okay," Jennie husks. "Believe me, I want it too."

Without thinking, as if needing to provide proof, she takes Lisa's hand into the front of her shorts, letting her cup the evidence, but quickly, she realises the error of her impulsive action. With delinquent minds of their own, two fingers slide through her folds, parting swollen lips. They move back and forth in long drags.

"Fuck," Jennie keens into the stroking, her head dropping down to her chest with a throaty whimper, as hips buck for more.

"You're incredibly wet."

The awe in Lisa's voice arouses her further.

"Lisa," she exhales, uncertain whether in encouragement or a last ditch cry for mercy when Lisa accidentally slips in.

Once the first knuckle reaches past her entrance, Jennie puts a hand on Lisa's wrist. Her inner walls protest at the interruption, trying to pull more length in.

The planned verbal objection dies on her tongue.

She nearly wails when Lisa's thumb brushes against her aching clit. A genuine accident this time by the confrite look on Lisa's face. But the unmasked arousal in her eyes forces Jennie to stifle a groan as her body treacherously sinks further down onto the fingers. Then rises up, lowers again.

Jennie repeats the swift motion a couple of times. Lisa helpfully does her part to push in and pull out in equal pattern.

"Fuck, you feel amazing," Lisa tells her.

It does feel amazing. Too amazing.

From the depths of unknown restraint, Jennie asks on a ragged breath, "Can we hold off?", repeating Lisa's pre-departure request. It's her turn to push for a rain check.

Lisa stops short of curling her fingers, a look of disbelief and despair as the tips rest against the spongy spot but respectfully don't press further.

"But you're so close."

"I know, I just ... please."

Fingers withdraw. Jennie is mentally grateful but her body's disappointment is palpable, muscles clenching around nothing, unimpressed with the new empty feeling. The complaint worsens when Lisa sucks her fingers dry, transferring the slickness to her lips. Jennie's lower lips throb jealously.

"Babe, you're killing me here," Jennie bemoans and has to close her eyes to banish the vision of those fingers re-entering her and finishing what they started.

But as thoroughly enjoyable as the momentary relief would be, she longs for an expanded unfolding-wanting to be able to stretch time with Lisa, breath hot on her skin and warmth spilling in her mouth. Lisa's name on her tongue over and over until she forgets her own.

Patience has never been her virtue but the agonising wait will be worth it for the reward of unmetered hours to carve new heights of intimacies together without the cloud of jetlag.

"Stop being you then," Lisa counters, sulking.

Her incorrigibility makes Jennie laugh. "What, you've got a kink for eight-hour staleness?" She brings the collar of her shirt up to her nose, it wrinkles in distaste. "Ugh, I smell like expired febreeze."

She shrieks when Lisa unexpectedly grabs her shirt by the fistful to pull her back down. Lips skim the length of her neck, Lisa breathing her in. "Nope, only Eau de Intoxicating."

"You're just trying to get into my pants."

"No denial there."

Jennie laughs again and pushes off of Lisa to lie on her side.

"Besides, you're the one who wants to talk first."

"I changed my mind. Talking is overrated."

"Not talking got us in trouble, so I'd argue you're wrong."

"Is it wrong to want you?" Lisa asks, dripping with melodrama. Jennie doesn't have a witty rejoinder, taking the question more seriously than Lisa intends with her silliness.

"Soon, ok?" She quietly promises, once Lisa shifts to mirror her position. "Just not yet."

The acceptance comes in the form of a tender kiss. They hold hands after, staring affectionately at one another. By the look of adoration, Jennie wonders how long her resolve will last.

-

It doesn't last.

The next time Jennie wakes up, it's to kisses along her neck and a humming in her ear. Although their positions have reversed, Lisa straddling her, the same argument persists.

"Lisa, I'm all gross," Jennie reminds, despite craning her head back to grant access to more skin. She fails to stifle a moan.

"Nuh-huh," Lisa mumbles her disagreement, then queries, "Is it soon yet?"

Jennie's answering laugh encourages Lisa's grinding while a hand makes its way under her top, waiting for permission.

Lisa's hair curtains her face as she looks intently into Jennie's eyes, whirling with emotion and lust that are likely the byproduct of another very vivid dream.

"Fuck it," Jennie decides, knowing they will never get off this couch if something isn't done about their unabated sexual attraction.

"I'd rather fuck you," Lisa spurs her on.

She nods, which is all the consent Lisa needs before her hand starts palming Jennie's breast. A gentle fondling at first but then increasingly more greedy. More moaning, less resisting.

Eventually, the intermittent tweaks to her nipple has Jennie sitting up to ruck her shirt above her chest, then pulling Lisa by the back of her neck towards it to soothe its hardness.

Relieving warmth is on her before the next breath has a chance to escape, Lisa's tongue gently laving over the peak and then taking as much of Jennie into her mouth as she can. She makes unintelligible sounds while rocking against Jennie who scratches her satisfaction into the back of Lisa's head.

A hand takes over again when Lisa mouths her way up Jennie's chest then neck before travelling to the underside of her chin, searching for Jennie's lips. The kiss is searing. Hot and messy. Jennie lets Lisa's tongue take the lead while she submits to the uncoordinated agenda.

Lisa's top is removed sometime, somehow. Bras too. The kissing intensifies as bare breasts rub against each other, hands fighting for purchase.

Lost in lust, they don't hear keys in the lock until the door suddenly opens.

"Ahhhh, Margaret Thatcher on a stick!" The exclamation startles the couple, breaking through the rush of blood in Jennie's ears. "My eyes!"

She is unceremoniously slammed back against the couch, landing with a thud. Lisa protectively covers her like a grenade has gone off, shielding her half naked torso from view despite her own state of undress as Jennie tries to figure out which way is up or down.

The door immediately shuts.

"Lisa, that better be you, and the fit blonde on top of you better be named Jennie!" They hear shouted from the hallway. The short vowel sounds and dropped 'r' of the amused voice comes through in a distinctly un-American accent.

Lisa buries her head into Jennie's neck, groaning, "Soooo ... that's Minnie."

"What?!" Jennie swats her shoulder, pushing her off. Not the type of first impression she had in mind. "Jesus."

She's still scrambling to pull her shirt back down, avoiding looking over to her left where taut abs are assaulting her peripheral vision as Lisa sits up, twisting around to find her top.

"Are you decent yet?" Their interloper questions while they right themselves, readjusting clothes and heartbeats. Minnie persists when neither of them answer, "That was too much Manoban for my British propriety."

"She has a key to your apartment?" Jennie asks curiously, wondering the extent of Lisa and Minnie's closeness, whether it's similar to her relationship with Jisoo and Hyuna, who have a spare to hers for emergency use.

"Huh?" Lisa stops mid search, looking at her confused. "She lives here."

"You're roommates?"

"Not exactly, there's only one bedroom," Lisa answers distractedly while reaching for her bra.

Meeting Minnie for the first time under such compromised circumstances is nerve-racking as is but the news of their possible sleeping arrangement gives Jennie some pause. What she and Lisa had just been doing should give her confidence, but the long haul flight and the time difference and the still fragile aftermath of recent turn of events create a strange mental space easy for doubts to seep in. The same vulnerability as when Lisa had revealed there was someone in her life momentarily resurfaces; questions slipping in whether there may have been more behind the story about Minnie that Lisa was too guarded at the time to tell her.

Swallowing tightly but knowing better this time, Jennie resists impulsive conclusion-jumping, and patiently waits to learn more.

She tugs at Lisa's waistband to grab her attention. The snap of the elastic earns her a playful glare. Jennie looks towards the darkened hallway that must lead to the bedroom, eyebrows arched in question. Lisa follows her line of sight, understanding dawns at the implication.

"Minnie and I have wild sex occasionally," Lisa deadpans. "Thought it'd be easier if we shared a flat. Welcome to my harem."

She makes a sweeping motion with her hand like she's surveying the extent of her kingdom. The explanation throws Jennie off for a second. She stares blankly at first, then shakes her head at the dramatics and wants nothing more than to kiss off the slanted smile, if only in relief.

Rather than rewarding her mischief, Jennie punches her, or tries to, but Lisa skilfully dodges the effort.

"Want to be head of my harem? The pay is poor, hours are long, but the benefits are great."

Lisa catches Jennie's fist on the second attempt as well.

"I'm a one-girl kinda girl," Jennie declines the job offer, crossing her arms that draws attention to the benefits Lisa would be missing out on. "Maybe I should grab a hotel. Wouldn't want to interrupt."

"My girl," Lisa makes the claim, immediately dropping all pretence when Jennie motions to leave the couch. She winds an arm around Jennie's waist, holding her in place, and lightly kisses the back of the hand being held. Jennie swoons at the possessive gesture and resettles in Lisa's lap.

"Minnie was house sitting. That was the initial plan anyways when I went to New York. But when my stay became indefinite, she converted my office den into her room."

"She didn't take your bed?"

"She refused to sleep in it. Said it was too gay." Lisa crinkles her nose, looking put out.

Jennie laughs, which only causes Lisa's brows to further crease. But instead of retribution, Lisa uncurls her hand and massages a thumb into her palm. The laughter gives way to a buzzing sensation.

Lisa gently combs Jennie's hair, intuitively providing a quiet reassurance. "Nothing to worry about."

"I'm literally still stood outside here, Lisa and friend."

Lost in Lisa's gaze, Jennie jumps at the muffled sound, finally registering the insistent knocking.

They help each other locate the rest of their missing garments and return to a covered decency.

"Ready?" Lisa whispers, cupping Jennie's cheek, another tender touch.

Jennie tips her chin up asking for a kiss that Lisa gladly gives. She breathes 'yes' into the soft space where she has trapped Lisa's bottom lip.

As Lisa goes to re-open the door, Jennie stands from the couch, suddenly nervous. She flexes her fingers, forming and un-forming a fist, to lengthen the tingling feeling of Lisa's imprint.

"What propriety, please, you're no English rose," Lisa says as she lets Minnie in, receiving a feigned gasp. When she steps aside, one of the most gorgeous girls Jennie has ever seen comes into view.

Jennie stares speechless at the figure by the door that's basically only legs. Minnie is beautiful. Slightly taller than Lisa and several shades darker, and altogether in the same category of stunning. She's also a version of Jennie with a loose white tee tucked into the front of jean shorts but pulling off the casual chic look on the same level as a model strutting couture on the runway. Jennie is all too aware now of her own disheveled hair and wrinkled clothes-silently cursing Lisa and her errant hands.

As the two friends greet each other and exchange teasing jabs, for a second, Jennie feels out of her depth. The previous abstract worry is replaced by something concretely troubling with Minnie standing a few feet away as a corporeal reality-more captivating and alluring in person than Jennie failed to imagine. Her stomach knots a small amount witnessing the familiarity and ease of their interaction, feeling a tiny bit of insecurity that Minnie was a possibility for Lisa. That they've kissed, even if nothing more came of it.

There's no cause for such unfounded jealousy but Jennie's insides nonetheless twists at the thought of how different things would be had Lisa pursued something with Minnie. Where she currently stands in London could be their shared space, for real; the party at the weekend could be for their engagement; Minnie's current hold of Lisa's forearm, as her head is thrown back in laughter, one of several thousand intimate touches they've tallied over the years while Jennie was pining.

Before the truant thoughts could best her, Lisa rejoins by her side, quietly-knowingly-rubbing the small of her back in comfort. Jennie is grateful for the grounding touch, as she is for the kiss to the side of her head. "You ok?" is asked into her hair. The affection in her voice makes clear with whom Lisa's heart is taken. Jennie changes the angle to meet her lips, answering with a proper kiss.

The world falls away and it is just her and Lisa and their newfound warmth.

A polite throat clearing breaks them of out their haze.

"Jennie, this is Minnie," Lisa makes the introduction at Minnie's approach, then her gaze perceptibly softens when it lands again on Jennie, "Minnie, my girlfriend, Jennie."

Twin heads snap to attention at the wording. One still unaccustomed to yet delighted by the offhand title, the other sporting a pleased grin like she's in on a secret.

"Lovely to meet you, Minnie." Jennie smiles genuinely turning back to Minnie as she takes her outstretched hand. Up close, Minnie's eyes sparkle in a way that reminds her of Jisoo's mischief while her lips borrow from Lisa's book of plumpness. The long eyelashes strikingly complete the tableau. "I've heard a lot about you. Congratulations on the engagement."

"Thank you. I'm a lucky girl," Minnie beams, playing with the ring on her finger. "But the pleasure's all mine, Jennie. This one basically has only one word in her vocabulary." She bumps Lisa's shoulder then leans forward to conspiratorially fake-whisper to Jennie, "It's not avocado."

Jennie laughs, charmed by Minnie's disarming affability, completely forgetting her anxiety from a minute ago. Lisa glares at her friend for the slight, which turns into a look of mock betrayal when Jennie goads for more intel. "Oh, really?"

"I'm certain she and I are only mates because I have a six letter name that starts with an M," Minnie quips.

"Nie ..." Lisa lowly mutters, jaw tightening, even so, her fingers on Jennie's waist unconsciously tap at the skin like she's spelling out exactly which remaining five letters she prefers.

The toothless warning doesn't deter Minnie. "I know more about you than my last two girlfriends combined." Her eyes twinkle as she looks between them and the couch, "And then some."

"God, that's so embarrassing," Jennie groans, feeling the creep of pink up her cheeks. She hides her blush into Lisa's neck. "You've seen more than you probably ever wanted to."

"There was a time when I wanted to see more of Lisa," Minnie shares, ignoring Lisa's unsubtle coughing and elbowing as she continues, "but we never got that far," and turns to give Jennie a soft, meaningful look. "My eyes were the wrong shade of blue."

Lisa scoffs, "They're not blue at all."

"Wrong blue, wrong yellow, wrong profession," Minnie lists off her fingers. "I was absolutely gutted, one snog and she full on crumbles. Do you know what that does to a girl's ego?"

"Maybe if you were a better kisser," Lisa taunts.

"Maybe if you'd let my hands roam."

Jennie smiles at their banter while mirroring circles on the small of Lisa's back that she is privately thrilled to have confirmed hasn't been traced by Minnie's hand.

"Apparently my lips don't taste like-Ow!"

Lisa smiles sickeningly sweet when Minnie glowers at her while reaching down to rub her ankle. "Oops, sorry, my foot slipped."

Jennie hides her disappointment at not hearing the rest of Minnie's sentence by mouthing a more genuine sorry for her girlfriend's antics.

"Six months of watering Thirsty and Prickly, that's the thanks I get," Minnie sarcastically remarks to her, pointing to the pair of succulents sitting on Lisa's window ledge. "Cheers, mate."

"Like you didn't take advantage of the free rent while your new place with Rian was under construction," Lisa retorts.

"Details," Minnie dismisses.

"Wait, I thought the house was ready last week."

"It was. We already moved."

"So, why are you here? Don't you have more important fiancée stuff going on?"

The question produces the first wane of confidence from Minnie, who hesitates, looking oddly to Jennie first, then to Lisa, back and forth between them like she's considering whether to reveal her real reason. Jennie doesn't miss the subtle nod Lisa gives to indicate her consent to whatever potential breach of confidentiality.

"I wanted to check in after you landed," Minnie says, carefully, "Given our last call, I thought you'd be in a much different position on the couch, curled up and brooding."

"I do not brood." Lisa makes a noise of indignation, eyebrows knitting and lips short of forming a pout, doing precisely what she's denying.

"Baby, you kinda do," Jennie laughs, smoothing out the furrow of her brows. Lisa practically melts under her thumb.

The term of endearment returns Lisa to their discussion, her shoulders visibly relaxing. She intertwines Jennie's fingers in show, "Sorry, I forgot to send a status update before takeoff."

"Status being ..." Minnie prods.

Lisa looks to Jennie for direction. The hearteyes is status enough of their relationship but since they have yet to talk at length and define it in detail for themselves outside of name-dropping girlfriend, Jennie answers with a simple, "Happy."

"I suppose then you don't need Tunnocks and Hobnobs?" Minnie teases, lifting the bag in her hand Jennie only just notices, shaking it for effect. "There's also some stock essentials in here."

"Oh my god!" Lisa drops Jennie's hand like hot coal, eagerly grabbing for the presumed goodies. Her friend's thoughtfulness goes rudely unacknowledged as she rifles through the bag.

Curious, Jennie leans in for a peek. She barely catches a glimpse of yellow and red packaging on top of the milk and bread and eggs before Lisa is opening a box, unwraps the tinfoil of a round-shape confection and pops the whole thing in her mouth. Minnie is in the middle of explaining Lisa's obsession with the Scottish tea cake when, without warning, stickiness hits Jennie's chin after Lisa swoops in for a kiss but misses her target.

Before she can fend off the attack, the taste of milk chocolate and something like marshmallow makes its way to her lips as Lisa licks upwards and parts the seam of Jennie's mouth with her tongue.

"Mmmm, so good," Lisa says, laving the excess cream. "The tunnock too," she appends, dorkily winking at Jennie, causing the blush on Jennie's cheek to deepen despite the cheesiness. The butterflies return at the blatant flirting.

"That's disgusting, Lisa," Minnie asserts but without any real bite.

Jennie nods in agreement but Lisa has already moved on to unwrapping another treat to pay them any heed.

"I see my work here is done, though my services were clearly not needed," Minnie notes with a broad smile then makes her way to the door. "I'll leave you two to ..." she waves her hand vaguely towards the general direction of the couch, "whatever it is that you were doing."

"Thanks, Nie," Lisa says around a half bite of another Tunnock, remembering her manners.

"I take it your plus-one is now sorted for the dinner?" Minnie asks, her hand on the doorknob. Lisa looks to Jennie again for input, another silent conversation with their eyes, before nodding on their behalf. "Brilliant," Minnie says, her smile widening, "I look forward to a proper chat with you, Jennie. I'll save you a spot on my dance card."

Jennie happily agrees as Minnie draws her into a hug.

"I've never seen her smile like that," Minnie whispers just before she lets go to pull Lisa in next. Jennie's heart sings with the knowledge.

This time, she isn't so disheartened watching the friends embrace, feeling ridiculous for having entertained any non-platonic thoughts.

Cocking her head in Lisa's direction, Minnie instructs loudly over her shoulder on her way out, "Don't let her eat the whole box in one sitting."

"So, that was Minnie??" Jennie pokes Lisa with a finger in the chest as soon as the door locks. "You didn't tell me she's basically sex on legs. Why didn't you date her? How serious is she with Rian? Maybe you still have a shot."

Lisa catches her jabbing finger, laughing. "Seeing as she took Beyonce's advice and put a ring on it, pretty serious."

"You missed your chance, babe."

"I was holding out for someone else." She walks Jennie and her finger backwards, leading them away from the living room.

"Anyone I know?" Jennie asks, too innocently.

"Possibly." Lisa steadies her by the hip when Jennie bumps into a wall, then presses up against her. "She's funny, smart, super talented."

"Is she pretty?" Jennie fishes.

Lisa gladly takes the bait, eyes taking their time studying her entire face and then, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, stresses with open wonder, "The prettiest. Stupidly attractive." Lisa's hand follows the hair's path into the baby ones at the back of Jennie's neck. "Jaw droppingly gorgeous."

Jennie's stomach flutters some more. She hedges, "She sounds exceptional. A catch."

"Yep. Stubborn though. Prone to violence," Lisa contends, taking Jennie's finger and softly kissing the tip. "A real heartbreaker."

They tense, the truth too close to home for their harmless flirting.

"Maybe not so exceptional then," Jennie says quietly, her gaze dropping but Lisa doesn't allow it. She lifts her chin and holds it between her thumb and fingers, a gentle press into the dimple there.

"No, she is. Not someone easy to let go. Especially not with the way she kisses."

Jennie's breath hitches when Lisa closes the gap to make her point, joining their mouths in easy, leisurely passes. Despite the mounting want each time they come together, the kissing doesn't progress to anything more like it did on the couch. It stays even tempo yet Jennie feels the affect of Lisa's warmth all the same. The Tunnock's residual sweetness is a bonus.

"How about a shower and then some food?" Lisa asks when they come up for air.

"That'd be perfect," Jennie answers, leaning her forehead against Lisa's.

-

The shower is still running when Jennie makes her way into Lisa's kitchen, hair no longer a hornet's nest, a fresh set of clothes on and wearing a smile that hasn't left since a subsequent make-out session just outside the bathroom door. The extended kissing was a necessary olive branch to placate the pouting following her veto of Lisa's proposal to co-clean and save water. Jennie did not trust them to keep hands to themselves, and insisted on separate showers.

While Lisa takes her turn at freshening up, Jennie takes in the new surroundings she hadn't the opportunity before with their other preoccupation.

Lisa's London flat is much better lived in than the one in Brooklyn though it's still characteristically sparse. The floor plan is similarly open if the space somewhat more compact. Smaller square footage, no island counter, and oddly, a washing machine under the kitchen sink, Jennie observes. A higher ceiling, however, gives the space a lofty airiness, compensating in height for what's missing in width.

She smiles at the neatness of everything, Lisa's penchant for order expressed in the geometric pattern of the tea towels. The cabinets and counter surfaces are finished in whites and neutrals greys, the minimalist aesthetic only broken up by a variety of cooking gadgets and tools that Jennie has to assume belongs to Minnie. She can't imagine Lisa having use for the almost industrial grade mixer.

The row of plants on the window sill enliven an otherwise bare decor. Thirsty and Prickly have a prime spot for catching sun, next to an assortment of other drought-resistant greenery, including aloe and jade, all potted in beautiful, dust pink-coloured ceramics. The way the late afternoon sun hits the micro arboretum transforms the meagre ledge into an exuberant Dutch still-life. Jennie's fingers itch for paper and graphite.

Abandoning thoughts of coffee, she turns to the living area on the lookout for drawing tools lying about. Between an artist and an architect, when they lived together, such things were abundant and never far away.

Sure enough, she does find black pens in the basket of miscellaneous items next to a stack of magazines on the coffee table. Her follow-up search for a blank marking surface is less productive, distracted by the colourful bookshelf in the corner. The inviting armchair next to it overflows with books and a cozy blanket lazily draped over the armrest. Though more than likely it was Minnie who last occupied the seat, Jennie can't help but picture Lisa curled in there, legs tucked under, and a hot beverage by her side, forgotten and long cooled while burying her nose in a book.

Jennie's eyes are drawn to a red spine with black lettering sticking out on a higher shelf. Her tippy-toed reach for the book is miscued, causing several others to tumble down and the corner of one to hit her forehead before landing aplomb on the wood floor.

The throb of pain, however, arrives elsewhere than anticipated. Her heart falters at what falls at her feet and is revealed between the opened page leaves. Her stomach swoops, eyes go misty, throat closing up when she recognises the text and interspersed images.

It's Lisa's dogeared copy of Catcher in the Rye. Stowed safely inside a book on lost youth are the sketches Jennie had idled away that first Fall they met on the bleachers. More than half a lifetime ago. Lisa had held onto the start of their love.

Unfolding the loose sheets, Jennie stares bleary-eyed at the pencil outlines of Lisa in various positions on and off the field. Lying on the bleacher bench, sunglasses on, pout and attitude firmly in place. Sitting hunched over, deeply immersed in her reading. Eating a sandwich. Throwing a ball.

One profile study in particular, but not of Lisa, stands out.

Helpless to a beautiful smile and a general inability to deny Lisa of anything, even at that early stage, Jennie had been persuaded to do a self-portrait during one of those crisp autumn afternoons. A young Jennie stares back, only a hint of wrinkles in the corner of eyes that are happy and carefree. She felt self-conscious about the doodle then, but Lisa insisted, citing the unfairness of always being the one under Jennie's artistic microscope. The shaky lines of Jennie's jaw were evidence of Lisa's attempt to draw her-exaggeratedly sloppy to goad the would-be artist into picking up the pencil-before they turned smooth when Jennie took over.

The lump in her throat grows when she notices a blotchy area that might have been wet at one time. It doesn't take a leap to think of Lisa's tears as the source of the smudged graphite.

It pulls the air out of her to see the other side of their mutual pining and how different pieces of them left behind had been their sustaining connection despite the apparent severance. Of how much and for how long Lisa had held on.

*****

"Don't move." Lisa instructed. Her head was bent forward in heavy concentration, hand moving briskly.

Jennie would blame the late afternoon sun for the sustained pink on her cheeks but it had long dipped below the horizon. The embarrassment creeping up from her chest and face was left to fend for itself when the bleacher lighting buzzed to life.

Green eyes occasionally looked up, only a passing, flickering glance, but enough verdant brilliance caught Jennie's gaze to quicken her pulse and make not squirming an impossibility.

Accustomed to being the one doing the observing rather than being observed, she didn't know what use to make of her hands now that they weren't documenting details of the world around her. Well, details of the girl in front of her.

A girl who, still in her baseball uniform with sweat clinging to a tired face, had beamed when they made eye contact after the game ended. Lisa raced up to join her on the bleachers, under the guise of wanting to review her performance as recorded through Jennie's sketches. Jennie's question of, "did you score any balls?", was met with a pretty laugh and a correction that Lisa did throw some good ones, followed by a confusing request to see her pitching mechanics. Jennie failed to understand the distinction-never mind that she didn't draw anything spherical or mechanical-but Lisa was beaming at her in a way that made denying her difficult.

After reluctantly handing the sketches over, Jennie held her breath while Lisa perused, hoping the extra shading time spent on muscle definition would escape notice, as would the numerous studies of Lisa's nose (and mouth and eyes).

Jennie had been so caught up in trying to interpret Lisa's subtle reactions to her illustrative reportage, she failed to stop Lisa from taking her pencil.

That was how she ended up sketchbook-free and pencil-less, on this side of the equation, tricked into becoming the subject of study.

Her nerves broke when Lisa revealed her efforts, laughing at the deliberately shoddy attempt to capture her chin, an exaggerated semblance of its distinction that was more cleft than dimple. Though, Jennie secretly thrilled at the extra care Lisa paid to the beauty mark above her lip.

"Lis, that's awful."

"I'd like to see you do better," her best friend dared despite the pages upon pages of evidence of Jennie's superior skills.

With a huff, Jennie retrieved her pencil and proceeded to correct Lisa's errors in representation. Her stubbornness and incapacity to back away from a challenge, usually a liability, proved to be a character strength when Lisa scooted closer, brushing against her side to watch.

"Show me." Lisa quietly pressed, when the outline of Jennie's face emerged on paper after several easy strokes.

There was no time to contemplate the ask before Lisa sat in front of Jennie slotting herself between shaky legs, and readied the drawing on her lap, in apparent wait for Jennie's hands-on lesson. It would be easy to attribute the heat of her chest to the warmth of Lisa pressed against her, but Jennie was conscientious enough of her latent feelings to assign due credit to the energy generated by the incessant fluttering in her stomach. Her whole body felt like it was on fire.

They had been toeing the line between friendship and more for awhile. The unsteady pattering of Jennie's heart whenever she roamed the halls of their highschool with Lisa carrying her books and innocently holding her hand; the spread of tingles directly tied to the broadness of Lisa's smiles over Jennie's increasing creativity with avocado sandwiches; and the late night under-cover fantasies of lips in all their devastating plumpness doing devastating things; were clear indicators of how far over into 'more' Jennie had personally travelled.

But it was in moments like this, with Lisa's back against her front, warm from play, when Lisa peered back over her shoulder, looking expectant yet equally scared by her impulsivity, that Jennie felt the mutual tugging at its most intense pull. The line erased entirely.

On a weak breath with a wobbly voice, Jennie enjoined, "Like this," and gently wrapped her left hand around Lisa's.

Neither commented that Lisa's right-handedness would prevent her from ever actually taking up Jennie's technique as successfully or fluidly. Regardless, the pair committed to the lesson plan, staring with shared open-eyed wonder as Jennie's practised movements journeyed their connected hands across the page.

That night, Jennie would play back the way her chin nestled on Lisa's shoulder, the catches of breath in her ear each time she'd involuntarily pushed closer into Lisa's lower back or tightened her legs when a mark excited her, and Lisa's hooded gaze afterwards when they finished the self-portrait, looking conflicted between Jennie's eyes and lips.

All the while the replay would miss the part where Lisa had snuck the sketches into her backpack while joking about the quality of the end product, "Eh, it's alright," because the tape had paused at where Lisa had promised to take Jennie to the MET to show her later what 'real art' is. A date date or just a friend date, the torment of not knowing wouldn't let her sleep.

That night, reflecting on all the lines they produced together, Jennie decided it didn't matter. There wasn't ever a line to begin with.

*****

She doesn't hear the water turning off or her name repeatedly called minutes later, doesn't register the soft padding of the footsteps that approach. Jennie is lost in nostalgia when arms encircle her waist and she feels a warmth against her back. Familiar and grounding.

Softly, "Hi, beautiful," Lisa says, a kiss to the head following. She sweeps Jennie's hair to one side and drops another kiss to her exposed shoulder, where her tank top hangs off.

"You kept them?" Jennie asks, her thumb grazing over the yellowed paper and its tattered edge.

"Of course," Lisa says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Like I said, hard to let go."

Still processing the history and life trajectory of her old drawings and how they ended up in Lisa's book, Jennie muses, "I peaked as an artist then."

"Probably," Lisa plays along.

Jennie is being facetious and self-deprecating but a part of her statement is true. Art, in important ways for her, is a representation of an inner life, expressed outwards. It's at its most arresting when it intimates a common truth, putting forth into the world private desires for public consumption, an empathetic bridge between the personal and the universal.

Unbeknownst to a young Jennie then, what she was putting out into the world was the starting strokes of a love story eventually told in meandering lines and meaningful markings. Later, more colour would expand her palette, her skills refined to produce a surer hand while her worldview shifted to produce more emotionally charged pieces. But in those early sketches, the truth of her art was naked.

Simple, innocent, wanting.

Love, at the beginning.

Her early bond with Lisa laid bare. Before the complications and confusions. Before they strayed so far from that simplicity.

Sometime later, away from that baseball field, Jennie had stumbled in the wake of Lisa's staggering love and lost her footing from something so sure as the bracket of Lisa's arms. Angry at the universe for possibly existing if Lisa couldn't be in it, she had precipitated them into a relationship crisis with her existential one. Mad at her heart for being too big; her chest too small. Overwhelmed by the meagreness of its limited beating against the magnitude of impermanence.

The sketches remind Jennie of what she had given up on in her unravelling; the only truth that ever counted. Love.

The tickle of Lisa's breath confirms it. The warmth of her, solid and safe, lets Jennie feel it.

"Would've saved Josh and Minzy loads of art school money if you'd quit while you were ahead," Lisa quips, tone teasing as she tightens her arms, unaware of how her very presence is buoying Jennie above the well of emotion. "Not too late you know, to consider a career change."

Fingers skate up Jennie's ribs, a playful kneading to tag-team Lisa's joke. The feeling swells.

Jennie turns and lifts on her toes to draw Lisa into a kiss. The only change she is invested in at the moment is to the angle of her mouth as it slots to absorb Lisa's surprise that turns into a soft sigh and moan. Jennie moves her lips in urgent presses, making silent amends to the lonely girl who might have burrowed into that reading chair and whose sorrow left a ghostly imprint on the ephemera of their youth. Gives gratitude to the strong girl who, despite her tears, didn't let go.

Lisa kisses back with equal fervour, if not the same objective. She meets Jennie stroke for stroke, suck for suck. One hand slips into her hair, gently tugging and responsive to their tongues movements and lips labour.

"I should insult you more often," Lisa concludes coming out of the haze of their kiss. "Not complaining," she says still catching her breath, then licks Jennie's lips, "but," and her own before asking, "what was that for?"

"Felt like it," Jennie shrugs, downplaying her motivation.

"Feel free to feel like it whenever you want."

What she wants is for their bodies to join until they are naked and spent. Collapsing perfectly into each other. What she does instead is memorise the look on Lisa's face now. Fresh from her shower, light and glowing and carefree.

Jennie pulls back to trace the line of Lisa's nose with the tip of her finger, remembering the countless hours spent on capturing its slope. Her soft touch causes eyes to drift close, providing an opening to admire their shape and contour.

Her study moves onto Lisa's ear after, fingers brushing over the small shell with fondness for the tiny size relative to other rather amplified facial features. It's as if Lisa's maker had ran out of clay after finishing with her lips. Her ears a casualty to overtime spent on perfecting the doors of love's threshold. But if the dip and arch of Lisa's mouth is the product of being lost in labour then Jennie is grateful for the sculptor's toil and lopsided effort.

She presses a thumb into the split of the bottom lip where a chisel might have slipped. Comparing it to the sketch in her hand, Jennie remembers the cut's irregular depression as giving her the most trouble of reproducing Lisa's likeness.

"Maybe I should've taken up a scalpel instead of a brush," Jennie rounds back, noting with genuine modesty, "my impoverished skills don't do you justice."

"Even Michelangelo would be stumped by this forehead," Lisa jokes then returns the sketches safely back into the novel and says, more to herself than Jennie, "These would pair well with the series I bought at the auction."

"Thanks for hanging on." Jennie's eyes go to the sketches, but they both know she means something else too.

"Had to." Lisa copies Jennie's shrug, back turned to her to re-deposit the book. When she faces Jennie again, it's with a smile, eyes soft and sincere. "Because you're you."

Lisa initiates this time, kissing Jennie and demonstrating with which part of her she is particularly fond.

"Ugh," Jennie puffs, pushing at her shoulder in feigned disgust after the kiss ends, "you're making this whole abstinence thing before talking very difficult." Her arms loop around Lisa's neck again as hands reset on her waist where they had moved on from cupping her cheeks.

Lisa laughs. "On the contrary, I am very easy," she argues, head shaking and nose wrinkling in amusement, and reminds, "You're the one who said not yet. I'm ready. Super ready. Super, super easy." To prove it, she takes Jennie's hand and slides it down her stomach to her waistband, leaving the decision up to Jennie to seek out confirmation.

"Lisa," Jennie warns and promptly relocates her hand to a safer spot. "We're not having sex."

"Why not? You don't smell anymore." Lisa makes the case by burying her nose into Jennie's neck, inhaling deeply. "Mmmm, like bottled summer."

Without caffeine or food in her system, Jennie is defenceless against Lisa's charm. But as tempting as the prospect is of becoming further pliant implied by that smile, the need for sustenance forestalls all desire to be under her. At Jennie's grumpy response, something between a groan and half-hearted huff, Lisa folds her in closer, smile widening into a chuckle. Jennie sighs, taking in just as deep of a pull. Relishing their shared scent of Lisa's soap and shampoo.

"I smell like you," she concedes, but won't admit to how warm she feels by that, asking instead, "When did your standards for getting me naked lower so much?"

"They've always been rock-bottom." Lisa laughs then pivots the conversation again just as Jennie takes another whiff, further answering her question with another question. "How much do you think your art is worth now?"

"Why?"

"Those doodles may be my only source of income."

Ignoring the reference to Lisa's soon-to-be unemployed status, Jennie asks, tilting her head back as the thought crosses, "Are there more?", looking to the shelf. Wondering if others are tucked inside of additional books.

"Uhh, yeah," Lisa stammers, a higher pitch to her voice while rubbing the back of her neck. Oddly shifting on her feet, suddenly antsy. Jennie finds it endearing all the same, attributing the shyness to possibly being outed as a private collector. "One or two."

"Anything good?"

"Just alright, I could do better," Lisa lies, the refrain earning another shoulder swat. "Show you later?"

Her gaze gentles into something soft and entirely tender, compelling Jennie to draw her in once more.

They kiss until lungs burn and pulserates spike.

The afternoon light frames Lisa's face in silhouette when they separate. Her question disperses among the motes of air, the familiar words settling with the dust of yesteryear. It's 2004 again and Jennie is staring at her crush. The Jennie on paper has a long journey before her, but here, now, they share identical smiles and contented hearts.

Love at a (second) beginning.

It makes her want to while the afternoon away sketching Lisa, picking up where those drawings left off. Instead, the yawn that escapes her redirects them to her earlier purpose in the kitchen.

"Coffee?"

"Yes, please."

-

The talk happens, as such things usually do, not in the way Jennie had planned.

Coffee turns out to be tea-stocked to the brim in one dedicated cabinet-that subsequently turns into another couch nap before returning to absentminded chatting at the dining table. Jennie would blame it on the timezone difference and the lower caffeine dosage but she and Lisa are finding the smallest excuses to stay physically attached.

They had held hands during sips of English Breakfast while Lisa spoke in a hushed but animated tone across topics; first about proper tea-making process and tea-drinking techniques, next, the origin of her plants and the specialty flower shop supplying them, then the expectations of her as a bridesmaid to give a speech at Minnie's engagement party, before moving on to the busy itinerary she has in mind for their date.

During brinner (breakfast as dinner), Jennie was practically on Lisa's lap as she was fork-fed the buttery and inconsistently fluffy results of Lisa's try at a twist of a cupboard classic, lace pancakes. Between bites, Lisa gave her the rundown of the controversy of 'batter week' on an apparently popular TV show called Great British Bake Off. The mixer indeed belongs to Lisa, who had put all her literal eggs into the shiny equipment to be her culinary breakthrough.

A contained hurricane in the kitchen, Jennie had watched on amusedly as Lisa moved from station to station of her prep work. Sifting flour, whisking eggs and milk, frying and flipping, and browning and dusting. She couldn't hold back her smile when Lisa had poured the batter into a plastic squeeze bottle, and refrained from artistically intervening when the freehand heart pattern turned out less lace and more lump. But Jennie hadn't cared that Lisa's pancakes were not as intricate and delicate looking as the reference image on her phone.

Their first real meal together in London, although not much of a gastronomic improvement from that time Lisa had surprised her with poached eggs in the park, had all the ingredients that Jennie would ever need. Being present together and sharing something made with love.

While Lisa went on about celebrity chefs and hot cross buns, Jennie had other ideas about suppleness and rounded fullness besides dough rise. She tried to listen but Lisa's hand rubbing her thigh between animated recounts impinged on her focus.

A pulsating need, Jennie physically throbbed for them to be closer. Putting extra force into her yawns, and purposefully slow blinking, she earned a doting look before being urged towards the bedroom for more rest.

Her ulterior plan to have the world's fastest 'what are we' relationship talk so they could get naked sooner rather than later, fell to the wayside when Lisa decided that reading would be an excellent idea. To combat jet lag. Jennie suspects the stalling in someone else's words was Lisa's strategy to give herself more time to find her own. At least Lisa had the decency to admit the falter in her brilliance just before her eyes drooped closed.

"Sorry, talk ... touch ... later," were the last emitted sounds as breaths evened out.

This is how Jennie ends up as the smaller spoon on Lisa's bed, wrapped in her arms and immersed in fluffy clouds. Minnie was right about the gayness of Lisa's setup. With nothing else to do, Jennie sinks into the satin.

For an unknown length of time, Jennie simply lays there, listening. Although equally tired, the rhythm of Lisa's light snoring is a lulling peace.

She never wants to take leave of its exquisite embrace.

Lisa's breath tickles her neck while a hand is splayed across Jennie's stomach, as much a protective hold as a preventive measure against disappearance while she sleeps. There is no chance of that. Like white on rice, Jennie intends to stick to Lisa during their entire time in London, and well, forever.

She gingerly takes the book out of Lisa's other hand-The Order of Time, the reading originally earmarked for in-flight occupation before Jennie presented herself as an alternative diversion-from which favourite passages were shared aloud.

Like the sketches that still connected them during their years apart, the book is another cablewire of that bridge. While Jennie had embarked on an abstruse philosophical inquiry into the nature of things, in parallel Lisa had been reflecting on the poetics and physics of time. They were two blurred lines joined together, equidistant from one another. Yet, where one concluded in wisdom and the other in grief, here, now, nothing is more lucid to Jennie than the clarity of her feelings, their persistence whatever the speed of clocks.

Before closing the book, Jennie lightly fingers over the last sentences Lisa had softly read into her ear.

"The world is not a collection of things, it is a collection of events. The difference between things and events is that things persist in time, events have a limited duration. A stone is a prototypical 'thing': we can ask ourselves where it will be tomorrow. Conversely, a kiss is an 'event'. It makes no sense to ask where the kiss will be tomorrow. The world is made up of networks of kisses, not stones."

Jennie's world has been a collection of Lisa's kisses. Networks of presses of varying intensities. Sometimes it is gentle and soft, no more force than a feather's touch. At other times, hard and demanding and urgent, with such acuteness of want it leaves her breathless, lips tender and sore. Everything aching.

She aches for it now.

It reminds her of waking up in Lisa's arms months ago the morning after the snowstorm, of holding her breath and hoping for a future where she gets to have Lisa like this. Serene and subdued and hers. Of wanting so desperately to kiss the sleepiness out of hazy eyes and sink into the softness of pillowed lips. Jennie remembers the way her heart hammered at the sight and felt heavy under the weight of unsaid words. I'm stilling holding on, you're still the one.

That she gets to kiss Lisa now, in full knowledge that Lisa was also holding on, is something so privileged Jennie has to fight the small burn behind her eyes. She's eager for the next event-the next kiss-to happen. It's a struggle not to rouse Lisa and instigate its earlier arrival.

The intensity of her yearning must have been subconsciously catalogued by the body behind her because her wandering thoughts are interrupted when Lisa startles. Jennie stiffens, waiting. But Lisa doesn't wake, she brings her hand up, searching blindly until she reaches Jennie's chest and gently cups her breast. Having found what she's looking for, Lisa settles again. A contented sigh.

Even unconscious, her girlfriend has a one track mind. Jennie bites back her laughter but the title does something to her heart. The small, warm breaths hitting the back of her neck does something else as well.

She doesn't bother moving the delinquent hand, happy to let whatever Lisa is dreaming become a reality. It's no imposition. Their renewed intimacy is breathtakingly sublime in its normalcy. Small, domestic. Palpably ordinary. Unremarkable by any measure but the micro rearrangement of bodies so closely attuned to the other that they move singularly as one in a play of cause and effect. How easily Lisa slips her knees behind Jennie while asleep, how Jennie pushes back into the waiting warmth, a curve made for hers.

They fit.

Lisa tightens her hold.

With that action, in this moment, holding off is an impossibility. Breaking her airport promise, having no cause for further delay, Jennie whispers the words into the quiet of the room.

"I love you."

A small bluster of air answers her.

The room, it turns out, is not so quiet. There's a disgruntled movement and rustling again of the sheets before Lisa is nudging Jennie by the hip, an incoherent mumbling prodding her to turn around.

When Jennie does, she is met with such a pretty pout, Lisa trying to blink away sleep, that she has to capture the jutted bottom lip. Jennie adds another thread to her ever-expanding network.

"Good morning," Lisa breathes into the kiss, then noses along Jennie's jawline, following its cut into the column of her throat to complete the greeting.

Lisa burrows into the hollow space terminating at collarbones at the base of Jennie's throat then traces the line outward to meeting point with shoulder, leaving a kiss there for later retrieval as she repeats the journey. Jennie stretches her neck to give greater working room when Lisa sidetracks on the return trip to lave at her pulse point.

It warms everywhere the tip of Lisa's nose grazes and where her mouth trails a beat behind.

A small breeze cools the rising temperature as a fleeting thought is spared for the open window that witnessed the sun taking its leave earlier and the moon taking over the day's shift. They had stopped reading precisely because of the waning light. It's well past dusk now, nevermind dawn.

"Good morning," Jennie parrots anyways with equal disregard for real time or its arbitrary construction.

Accuracy has no foothold when time is measured from one kiss to another, one event to the next.

But then, there's wetness on Jennie's cheeks. When she draws back to investigate-and sees the water in Lisa's eyes-Jennie's stomach drops in turn. Cause. Effect.

"Hey ..." Jennie brushes her cheek, concerned for the glassy gaze. "Baby, what's wrong?" She asks, as gentle as the sweep of her thumb.

Lisa shakes her head, signalling nothing, though clearly it's something with how her break in composure is sending small tremors between them where skin touches. In rose-bloomed cheeks Jennie reads a hint of embarrassment for the display.

Before the worry lines can furrow, Lisa gathers enough of herself to speak up.

"Say it again," she asks, the timbre of her voice no higher than a hushed tone.

Jennie melts at the request, knowing at once what Lisa wants to hear and what might be stirring her emotions. She tucks Lisa's hair behind her ear, smoothing away the others sticking out from the static charge generated by their prior shifting.

Cupping Lisa's face, she softly exhales,

"I love you."

The response this time is immediate. No hesitation, no pacing or twisting of hands. None of the heartrending questions. Only a pooling of green reflecting a wetness that is also in Jennie's eyes.

Soft and sure, the response comes.

"I love you, too."

Lisa scratches at her stomach-a bridging action to anchor her words, which sink into Jennie's chest, arriving like a distant wave that's finally crested to shore. Sweeping, enveloping. The gravity of mutual affection pulls them closer together, Jennie pressing forward like seawater coming to collect its sand.

Lisa meets her more than half way.

She quantifies for Jennie through a keen exploration of mouths-a slow-burn intensity-that leaves no bank of doubt as to the extent of her ardour. They kiss with the sort of harboured longing that is at once indescribably soft and deeply imprinting.

"I've wanted to tell you for awhile," Lisa reveals when they gasp for air, cheeks coloured pink the rose of Himalayan salt that has Jennie rethinking metaphors, mountain instead of sea. It would certainly match the altitude where her head newly rests amongst the clouds.

The tremble of Lisa's bottom lip, however, grounds her thoughts; a nervousness that Jennie is quick to steady with the soft press of thumb first, then a more lingering one with lips bruised from a good kind of hurt. She brushes their noses together, adopting Lisa's technique, an intimate touch that works to calming effect.

Jennie finger-combs through her hair, patient, keeping as quiet as the stillness blanketing them, intuiting there's more Lisa wants to say.

"I felt it but I panicked when I realised that you did too." Lisa swallows, looking down, hiding glistening eyes that shine a green still holding onto leftover pain. It takes every fibre of strength for Jennie's not to well over.

"I am so sorry that you ever doubted what you mean to me," Jennie is quick to apologise and reaches up to trace her cheek, "My love should never have been or ever be a question mark for you."

Lisa nods, accepting Jennie's sincerity. "It'd been so long ... a part of me was resigned to not hearing those words again," she confesses. "Not from you, anyways," is quietly appended with a tinge of sadness that twists Jennie's insides.

Her throat tightens at the emotion dampening their shared pillow, heart breaking at Lisa's quiet tears that she is too slow to brush away. She tries so very hard not to cry but then Lisa takes her hand, gently placing it against her chest in a mirrored move from the time on Jennie's couch when Lisa had wondered why she wasn't enough. It takes moving mountains to fight against the turning tide.

"When you finally told me that you love me, everything came rushing back. I went stupidly numb. But Jennie," Lisa continues, voice cracking at the edges, yet her returned gaze is steady, "I felt-feel-it too." She takes a deep breath, her next words stealing several from Jennie's lungs. "I have never been empty of you."

The tears slip down.

The paraphrasing of Virginia Woolf floods Jennie's memory with images of their younger selves holed up in their Brooklyn apartment. On a particularly harsh and cold winter's day, when Jennie was under the weather, they huddled under the covers together. Jennie recalls the time spent in quiet bliss to distract her aches and fever; of Lisa reading the extraordinary love letters written between the English writer and the poet, Vita Sackville-West; of being cradled against the warmth of Lisa's chest while letting the heat of the lovers literary exchanges add kindle to their own burning love; of Lisa's promise held tightly within her arms that she too will never be empty of Jennie; not for a moment, an instant, a single second.

"I will carry you, always," had been breathed into her skin as their bodies writhed together nights later when Jennie felt better, as she came on Lisa's tongue and fingers and tongue again, as she was unmade and remade over and over, surrendering to a fullness that pushed love to its edges.

"Never empty," Lisa reaffirms in the present, catching the run-off on Jennie's cheek and kissing it dry. "Not once."

Jennie knows something of that expansiveness, to be so filled with someone-constant and consuming, undiminished and unblunted by time. The immensity of affection, the seeds of fondness and tenderness, embodied and stowed away season after season that no grain store in the world is large enough to hold.

It's a heady feeling to see the same ineffable love emanating from Lisa's eyes that thrums through Jennie's entire being.

"I have never gotten over the consequence of you."

Her words fill Jennie's chest the same way daylight arrives in the morning. Softly, rising, then all at once.

The affect of Lisa, her effect, importance, relevance, the consequence of who she is and what they mean to each other ever since meeting, has been a rising sun.

"I haven't either."

"I am fiercely attached," Lisa summarises, repeating with steadfast surety, "I love you."

If words were capable of radiating, those three would vibrate on their own frequency, their inflection attuned to the particular rise and fall of Jennie's chest. Math has never been her strong suit, but calculating the sine and cosine of her heart's rhythm suddenly becomes possible with how loudly the words reverberate in her ears.

They remind her, there are other, more throbbing pressure-sensitive matters to tend to. The need for other forms of communication takes over. Other ways of expressing their love.

From the airport touches and the foreplay on the couch that left a lingering wetness, to the explicit knowledge now of love's full reciprocation, Jennie's chance of surviving the overwhelmingness of it all depends on how soon Lisa can be on and in her. She can't wait anymore.

As need and desire intensify in equal strength, Jennie quivers for her touch. Wants a slow, drawn out reckoning, the kind that leaves their bodies in quiet devastation, a landscape of black and blue while their hearts aglow in a riot of russet and ochre.

Jennie doesn't answer her this time. Not verbally. She reaches up to caress Lisa's face, fingers softly plying into warm skin. If the message conveyed in the tenderness of their movements wasn't broadcast enough, the I love you transmits directly when her mouth soon finds Lisa's. Eyes fluttering closed, Lisa responds in generous kind. She receives Jennie again and again with a faithfulness as if the commune of their lips is her life's devotion.

Like old memories, their kisses are pigmented a sepia tone that turn Jennie liquid, seeping in the colour of their past. As they move gently against each other, in unhurried passes, Lisa's fingers curl around Jennie's waist, pulling her in closer and closer until there is no space left between their bodies but the sound of their sighs.

They only separate once air becomes as urgent as the imperative for skin on skin contact. With unspoken cooperation, clothes are gradually discarded while breaths hitch at the sight of newly bare parts their removal affords. The atmosphere feels charged and fragile as they take in their nude forms, laid on their sides like before but everything now in full view. It feels like the first time again, skin vibrating with the promise of undiscovered pleasure and joy when their bodies unite. Yet, there's a vintage quality to how they reach for each other and familiarly fold into the other. They resume kissing, erasing the space between once more as they come flushed together.

The next series of events become a visceral pronouncement of just what the consequence of Lisa-her hands and mouth and words-can lay waste across the hills and valleys of Jennie's body.

Slow and gentle and breaking.

On separate but intersecting journeys, their hands travel across the expanse of dips and curves while their gazes remain firmly fixed on one another observing the reactions the stopovers elicit. The trace of a collarbone down to sternum causes a shiver; the gentle slotting of fingers between ribs sliding back and forth in idle motion pulls a sigh; the smoothing of taut lines of back muscles releases a deep moan; the simultaneous thumbing of nipples provokes a shared wimper.

From knee to thigh, over the round of hip, then up her side towards the bend of neck and shoulder, the trail of Lisa's finger, attentive and static-charging, leaves Jennie empty of air in its wake. By the willowy puffs of exhale that hit her, Lisa is struggling with similar shortness of breath.

With such thorough care given to the minutiae-the placement of a beauty mark, the prelude then terminus of a line, the denouement of a curve-this feels more intimate than anything they've done recently. More consuming somehow.

Tingles spread like wildfire everywhere while the heat rises by steady degrees between their legs. Entangled as they are, Lisa's wet warmth coats her thigh equal in measurement to Jennie's own run. She is liquefied, made molten and immaterial, by the soft attention repaid to lips from a seeking tongue. The way Lisa wraps around hers, applying a silken pressure, makes it extraordinarily difficult for Jennie to stay solid.

She's close to dissolving entirely when their hands mutually reach below, stroking and stroking in wordless partnership until fingers dip straight into the heat source. They enter at the same time, identical gasps fall out as they take each other in. Lisa feels so hot, Jennie keens forward, drawn into the ferrous warmth of her. It's a reciprocal process thereafter, where Lisa pushes, Jennie pulls, then reversing and repeating. Despite the energy such profuse heat commands, a gentle rocking ensues.

Their kissing restarts with less fire than before because of divided attention but is effectively a quiet burning all the same. By tacit understanding, they commit to a slowness above and below that gives space for each pump and curl to be felt, for each moan and whimper to be earned then stretched, for each other to taste the fullness of a sigh on the crest of lips as it makes its exit.

There will be time later for fast and hard, for something rougher and far less gentle, Jennie does not doubt. In this vulnerable moment, however, she would lay her life down on the knife of this tenderness. Because, with how Lisa has subtly shifted to be on top and manoeuvred Jennie's legs to wrap around her waist and hook by the ankles at her lower back, with the way she has begun to thrust that is more sway than force-passing sounds of love gently between them to and fro-it is a staggering, sweeping experience. A rhapsody only heightened by the pillow of lips that promises to catch her fall.

Lisa's solid, sure pressure on top is all that keeps Jennie from being rendered into liquid heat.

"Lisa," she exhales with the only breath left in her.

"It's okay," Lisa coos, barely above a whisper, her voice as raw as the affection in her eyes. "I've got you."

There is 'love' and then there is Lisa. Two words, both four letters, sharing one consonant and one vowel. But when Lisa is inside her like this, holding her as gently but tightly, there is no distinction, the alphabet reduced to nothing but synonymous, murmured sounds. The press of her, the closing of walls. Jennie's heart stutters to form a word.

Lisa curls her fingers presciently and presses a thumb down on her clit-but what finally tips Jennie over are Lisa's next words, formed for her. Breathy and hallowed.

"I love you."

This time, they don't shatter her world but builds it anew.

"Never empty," Jennie faintly hears as she comes and comes.

Lisa joins her in seconds. The hot spill of their fluids is like lava filling in the fissures of their relationship, a subtle alchemy that binds them whole.

Jennie arches off the bed, Lisa pitches forward to meet her. They tumble together.

"I love you, too," Jennie returns when English makes sense again.

When her body resettles down under the solidness of Lisa. It all makes sense again.

-

It's sometime later, after what feels like a long night's sleep but turns out to only be a deep nap, that Jennie wakes to a pressing warmth on top of her. Feeling loose and limp, she comes into awareness in small degrees. Lisa's leg is bent at the knee and resting atop while a protective arm is slung across her stomach. A full head of hair is on her chest, untamed curls spread across it, one hand innocently covering Jennie's breast.

The tender hold prompts flashes of what provoked their current arrangement, the still-fresh burn between her legs confirms it. They must have fallen asleep immediately after.

She catches the time on the bedside clock. It's just past an hour after they had showered and dressed again for bed. Jennie vaguely remembers pulling on a thin spandex pair of boyshorts that belongs to Lisa, which she had to borrow because her hasty, light packing had resulted in an uneven ratio of tops to bottoms. Decked out in Lisa's clothes and wrapped up in her arms is a new peaceful reality she doesn't think she'll ever tire, just as her eyelids feel heavy again.

Giving into her fatigue but not wanting to oversleep, she's about to reach for her phone to set an alarm when a low, persistent sensation co-opts her attention. Jennie thinks it's her bladder, attributing it to be what had compelled her to stir in the first place, but on closer review looking down, she finds the insistent pressure belongs to Lisa's pelvis that's softly, unconsciously grinding against her side. She can't help the answering moan now cognizant of Lisa's movements.

Jennie must expel it louder than the rising pulse in her ear lets her know because Lisa comes to then, announced ahead by a cute yawn.

Likewise, it takes several seconds for Lisa to regain her bearings. Bleary-eyed, she tries to rub the fog away. Her eyes widen in alarm once cleared and she realises her dream-state activity. Just as Lisa moves to disentangle, cheeks blooming in embarrassment, Jennie places a hand on her hip, keeping her in place and reassuring the motion is more than welcomed.

"Don't stop."

Reading the permission behind Jennie's soft petition and darkening gaze, Lisa adjusts her leg and jogs her hips experimentally, taking over what dream Lisa might have been up to. Within minutes, through a combination of Jennie's whispered encouragement in her ear and the pawing incitement of Jennie's hand on her bum, Lisa is rocking hard against her. Much more forcefully than before their nap. Even through a layer of cotton, Jennie's thigh is significantly dampened by her increasing enthusiasm.

"Jennie."

Head turned and buried into Jennie's neck, Lisa comes on an extended whimper after a reverential exhale of her name.

Jennie rubs her back to comfort as the shivers of Lisa's orgasm thread through them both.

They could fall back asleep like this, with Lisa satiated and Jennie warmed by her wet heat, their chests rising and sinking in joined pattern again. But the way Lisa fists Jennie's shirt and mouths her thanks into her pulse point, it pulls low in Jennie's gut, quickly reigniting the fire that hadn't quite been put out by the drag of sleep. The earlier insistent pressure has distinctly travelled to between Jennie's legs, pushing all thoughts of slumber away. Jennie briefly considers the merit of dry humping like Lisa did to promptly assuage desire but she knows that is not going to be enough.

Stalling her decision, Jennie tips Lisa's head back to slide their lips together. The grip on her shirt tightens as the kiss deepens. When their gazes meet again, Lisa looks about ready for another, more involved round too.

It's that the magnetic pull of Lisa's dazed expression that makes Jennie take action.

With unknown agility, she manages to invert their position, putting Lisa startlingly on her back. Jennie rolls on top, propping her upper body on her palms. Lisa's hands grab her waist on instinct, despite the surprise in her eyes at the show of strength.

The air crackles with anticipation of what she'll do next. The bite to Lisa's bottom lip firms her decision.

Jennie sits up fully, straddling Lisa's stomach, knees planted on either side. She pulls her shirt over her head. Voice still raspy from sleep, she asks Lisa, a grainy plea, "I need you inside again."

Lisa's eyes instantly cloud with lust.

She stares up at the revealed skin with something akin to awe, eyes roaming the curves in plain sight, slowing over the larger swells and stopping altogether at the peaks hardening from the new coldness. Jennie arches her back, preening at the attention.

Lisa places hands on her thighs but, unusually, takes no further action other than schooling her expression. It's unclear whether Lisa's ambivalence is because she's still short-circuiting from her orgasm or if she's plotting in what dismantling ways she'll take Jennie this time; whichever the case she seems to not have received Jennie's memo about immediacy of want.

Hopefully it's the latter that's motivating the delay in receipt because the burn low in Jennie's stomach-and the heat gaining momentum at the join of her legs-is impatient for resolution. Their earlier reunion was a surplus of softness, as tender and gentle as she associates with belonging to the words, I love you . But with the other side of the same coin, I want you , flipping over, Jennie now craves something less languid and not so lengthy, but still just as ruinous.

To speed things along, Jennie reaches up to tie back her hair into a bun, the raise of her arms causing deliberate emphasis to her chest area. It garners a visible swallow but no other movement. Frustratingly, circling a hand down to the dip between her breasts and then palming one enticingly, also does nothing more than widen Lisa's eyes. A lick to a chapped bottom lip is the only formal acknowledgment of Jennie's ploy.

"Please."

It takes Jennie begging to set her girlfriend in motion. Albeit excruciatingly slow. (Jennie abstains from complaining. At least Lisa got half the memo.) Lisa trails her hands up from Jennie's thighs, smoothing along her hips then ribs, stilling appreciatively under the swell of her breasts before cupping them in the faintest of holds.

She gives a long, appraising squeeze then thumbs over hardening nipples in mirrored patterns. Jennie's gasping appreciation is met with a gaze full of unspoken intent as eddying as the circles causing it. Hungry lips soon wrap around one nipple, laving and sucking, while the other is rolled and pinched.

The process switches after minutes of Jennie self-helpfully pushing into her mouth while hard pressed to keep obscenities from escaping her own. Once her nipples reach the desired puckered state in which she is a stroke and lick short of coming from breastplay alone, Lisa stops, lies back down, and resets her hands back on Jennie's thighs.

Jennie vocally objects to the abrupt pause in programming, letting out a squeak of extreme discontent, entirely unimpressed by the haughty mask of innocence staring back at her.

Annoyingly, the switch in Lisa's demeanour, her ability to go from attentive a moment ago-extremely vulnerable an hour earlier-to being an utter, infuriating tease, only makes Jennie wetter.

Her light panting and soft whining protest has little effect on Lisa who is content to just admire the outcome of her work, watching with dilated pupils-and no small degree of satisfaction-as Jennie squirms and unsubtly rocks her hips in search of friction. The wetness builds, warmth pooling in her shorts. There's no chance now of returning them back to Lisa unsoiled.

"Really?" She asks, incredulous.

Lisa's eyes betray a want for more but a shrug is all that she's willing to give to Jennie, the shoulder lift revealing a collarbone that has no right to be so damn attractive. Not when it frustrates Jennie's need to get off.

"Fine."

Jennie grinds down a couple times to illustrate just how not fine she is before she lifts from the tight abdomen to summarily rid the shorts. If Lisa refuses to do any of the work, she's not above going after what she wants. Jennie straddles her again once fully nude but she doesn't sit back down. Instead, hovering above in a literal naked challenge to Lisa's will power, she massages one breast while her other hand moves down to her core, teasing at the hair before fingers slide back and forth through her folds.

They're both fully awake now.

The show is for Lisa's benefit but nonetheless it gets Jennie going. While Lisa silently studies her movements, Jennie sinks fingers inside. She closes her eyes, head falling back at the stretch. An unbidden need takes over. She moans through the slickness, pumping eagerly. Jennie visualises Lisa's fingers doing the work, and knows it must be a shared imaginary by the sounds of indistinct noises coming from beneath her.

She opens her eyes to find a captive audience, Lisa's face flushed and restraint fraying. The bedsheet tightly gripped in knuckle-white fists.

"Baby, please."

It works again. Lisa's kink for Jennie begging has her pulling the hood of Jennie's clitoris back, brushing a thumb over the swollen bud. Gentle and exploratory at first but before long the agenda changes. Faster and with less delicate care as the heat between Jennie's legs and the volume of her moaning rises in tandem. The pressure builds and builds.

A third finger soon joins Jennie's two. Jennie withdraws to make room but Lisa manages to slip in without help. The new fullness produces twin reactions, mouths falling open in silent cries. Without consultation, they set a gasping rhythm together.

Jennie is nearing her release when the order arrives, soft yet firm.

"Don't come."

It's an insurmountable ask given her arousal's demand to do exactly that. Jennie whimpers and her walls clench and her lips flutter in opposition. Her hips ground down, defiant. They both shudder at the new gush of fluid coating their fingers. She doesn't think she can wait, not with the sight of Lisa panting and her wild chestnut curls damp from the effort but framing her face in a gorgeous glow. But then, Lisa's entreaty effectively stops Jennie's quiet rebellion, "Let me love you as hard as I can and then you can come as hard as you can."

Disobedience and a quick release is no longer an attractive goal given the magnitude of the reward on offer. Lisa's passivity and hold up now make sense. She wants Jennie's protracted surrender, wants to witness Jennie break apart slowly by her hands. Where before their nap the slowness was meant to savour, this one Lisa seems intent to split her asunder.

On Jennie's gulp and nod, Lisa guides their joint thrusting to greater speed and strength, even as she commands Jennie to do the impossible, "Hold it."

Just as she thinks she can no longer, Jennie is being shuffled forward until her knees rest beside Lisa's head, above her shoulders. She tries to sink down but hands hold her tightly back, stilling her trajectory.

Jennie chokes out a displeased whine, ready with a glare to be denied yet again, when the gentlest of kisses meets her wet folds. Lisa licks the sweep of her then motions with a shiny chin for Jennie to resume post.

"Keep going."

The strained inflection makes clear that Lisa isn't unaffected in the least. So, Jennie does continue, moving with greater purpose, slowly spreading the wetness before adding her own third finger to compensate for Lisa's absent one.

In.

Then out.

In.

Push and curl.

Out.

She watches Lisa watch her. Eyes darkening to the colour of the night that shrouds them.

It's an intoxicating sight.

Jennie should feel self conscious for the nearness of her admirer, how much the scent of her arousal must be filling Lisa's nose, how wet and glistening her inner thighs must appear at this close range.

She is dripping. The evidence falling indelicately onto Lisa's waiting lips. Jennie should be shy of the mess she's making had she the concentration to do something other than thrust her fingers and fuck herself senseless.

Wrist starting to strain, she is relieved when Lisa gestures to remove her hand.

"Can I?" Lisa asks for permission with a hunger in her gaze that communicates just how much she is ready to finally actively participate.

Jennie keenly nods, withdrawing her fingers and lowering her body to give better access. The warmth of Lisa's tongue must match the heat she finds because the throaty reaction the contact evokes is beyond sinful. Lisa works her up but stays on the surface, setting a pattern between sucking her clit, circling her folds and flattening strokes across her seam that split her further open. Jennie rides Lisa's enthusiasm, placing her hands against the wall and doing her best to keep upright and not prematurely spend her arousal.

Her hips rock forward, grinding against Lisa's face though careful to keep her weight off.

After minutes of erratic movements, Lisa stops for much deserved air. Hot, sweaty skin pulsing.

Jennie vibrates with anticipation. She is so close. Without penetration. She bends down for a kiss, a brief rewarding of Lisa's tongue with the use of her own.

Lost in addictive moans, she almost forgets the bigger goal until Lisa pats her thigh to indicate she's ready to go again.

But when her efforts are renewed what Jennie doesn't expect is for Lisa to part her butt cheeks and fingers to circle her other hole. When the tip of a finger nears her entrance, she buckles even as Lisa stays on the outside waiting for consent to enter. She nearly smothers Lisa's airways with the force of her thighs closing in reaction to the anticipated sensation, legs trembling.

"You said inside." Lisa's teasing turns to genuine concern when Jennie tenses. Unable to immediately reply because of a spiked heartrate, her silence sets Lisa off on a nervous ramble. "I know we typically use lube before but I thought you're wet enough and we showered and are super clean. Also, I don't actually own any lube in London because there hasn't been anyone else ..." She trails off on the last part before picking up steam again. "I could use my tongue, it's softer, but then I thought my fingers would be safer since I also want to continue kissing you without worrying about bacteria transfer." Her sputtering into safe sex practices melts Jennie, whose reaction is more out of surprise than not wanting to proceed. With how immeasurably considerate Lisa always is of Jennie's body, the risks hadn't even occurred to her.

Before Jennie can voice as much and stop Lisa from spewing on about gloves and dental dams, Lisa asks regretfully, "Should I stop?"

"No!" Jennie's too-quick, too-loud reply jolts them both, the jerking causing Lisa's finger to pleasurably graze the area in contention and inadvertently dip inside the smallest amount for a second. "No, no. I mean, yes. It's good. Amazing actually. Just ... it's been awhile and you caught me by surprise."

"I wanted to feel all of you," Lisa says timidly, face pulled in sincere apology for not being more overt with her intention. Jennie can understand the sentiment and her eagerness. With their history of intimacy, their physical connection often happened without the need for explicit communication. With a closeness that's almost second-nature, they can easily get carried away.

Jennie brings a hand down to smooth the furrow between Lisa's brows. "I want it too," she softly affirms, reassuring that she is just as keen. "I want you."

The lines on Lisa's face slacken at the affection.

Jennie proposes, "You can use your mouth there another time, when we're more prepared. For now, fingers are good," and receives a nod.

She bends down and kisses away the last of Lisa's worry. As their mouths move against each other's, it doesn't take much before things heat up again, the short interruption not hampering any progress. By contrast, it fuels Jennie's desire all the more.

Once she's lined up as before and on her signal of consent, Lisa experimentally brushes near the smaller opening again. Jennie pushes into the action this time.

Lisa gathers more wetness and attentively redistributes it via soft strokes and wide, maddening circles. She swirls her finger around the rim and loosens the contracted muscles, which as Lisa rightly predicted isn't difficult with how drenched Jennie is. Her diligence pays off because in short minutes Jennie is pulsating and ready to have her deep inside.

Lisa catches her eye to say, "Look at me and just feel me, okay, love?"

Jennie softens at the term.

Declining isn't really an option at this rate of her soakness anyways. Opening her legs wider, she happily obliges. On a sucked-in breath, Lisa re-enters, slowly pushing in and in some more when no further objections come, until she is buried inside Jennie. Walls flutter around the new presence. The initial burn quickly turns into pure pleasure when Lisa starts a rhythm and increases the tempo.

"Oh god."

Jennie is filled with Lisa. Her cunt and clit throb jealously but she ignores them, knowing they'll be well attended to later.

Her focus for the moment is on Lisa's lustful gaze that drinks her in as though there isn't enough of Jennie to quench her own thirst. It almost falters at the unfettered desire raking her in.

Jennie realises then what Lisa means by wanting all of her. Lisa is recreating their last coupling before things fractured beyond repair; re-establishing lost intimacy that had been severed following a heartbreaking moment of heightened physical closeness but gaping emotional distance. Having Lisa deep inside somewhere so private is an act of trust, the abandonment of self entirely to her care.

Anal is an area of intercourse they haven't ventured yet in the last two months despite the usual wantonness of their sexual encounters-and how prominently it featured in the past when they were at their neediest. Given the circumstances of their breakup, however, such explicit claim of the body held an aura of sacredness-the last physical territory of vulnerability-that they had subconsciously stayed away from. It required a level of emotional safety not yet reached. A level that has since been breached hours earlier.

Intimacy, even when their relationship was at its breaking point, has always been an act of standing guard over the other, keeping hearts safe. As Jennie opens for Lisa now, she has never felt more secure than in the shelter of Lisa's gaze.

I'll keep you safe, Lisa's eyes promise, even as her hand begins to do devastating things.

How have we not done this sooner, Jennie now wonders as her stomach tightly coils, Lisa burying her finger to unknown depths, pushing well past any invisible barriers.

Her legs ache from a prolonged period of spread but Jennie only gives a passing thought to the discomfort as the driving penetrations keeping them apart feel too incredible to complain. She's too aroused and far gone to worry about muscle soreness.

Lisa moans into her task, having also taken up licking Jennie's folds to add to the already considerable pleasure. She shows no signs of her own aches from her jaw's sustained open position. Lisa revels instead at the call and response her actions elicit, her teeth occasionally catching on Jennie's folds to encourage the hoarse expletives.

"Fuck, fuck."

As Lisa works in and out, dragging and twisting on each leave, her mouth catches the overspill of Jennie's liquid compliments.

The other hand on Jennie's ass-a bruising hold sure to leave marks-spreads her as far as possible for as deep as Lisa's now-two fingers can reach. The nose that sometimes inadvertently scrapes against her clit is doing her no favours.

Jennie rides Lisa's face and fingers with breathless aim. With no other purpose than to feel as much of Lisa in her as possible, her hips move and grind of their own accord.

Lisa's athleticism, her coolness under intense pressure, works to their advantage. She is nonplussed by the jarring motions and, through an iron will and strength, able to maintain control, not once taking eyes off Jennie.

The show of power weakens Jennie's knees but they have nowhere further to go, already dug deep into the mattress as they are. She overexerts not to sink down, fearing for Lisa's jaw.

Then Lisa changes tact. All bets are off when she pays direct attention to Jennie's swollen bud-sucks it into her mouth, envelops it in wet warmth before flicking it at an inhuman rate. Jennie mewls something incoherent. At the spill of more fluids and curses, Lisa eases off while still keeping the momentum of her thrusting into Jennie's ass.

But the relief of one burning sensation is overtaken by the fire of another. A new set of fingers push inside and starts pumping in her pussy. Jennie bucks almost violently at the alternating pressures. With whatever wherewithal she has left, she strains not to crush Lisa's head between her legs.

Maintaining eye contact at this point is unfeasible. As pleasure courses through Jennie's body, breaking it incrementally and then with escalating fervency, her eyes slam shut as the orgasm careens within reach.

Lisa slips out from under her. Jennie has no time to question the sudden absence before she's being pulled backwards by the hips, a rough yet gentle handling as she's coaxed onto all fours. She hangs her head between her shoulders and outstretched arms, gasping for breath and unmindful of the scrambling sounds of clothes being removed hastily behind her.

Vivid flashes to their time in Lisa's cabin in a comparable situation are all that is keeping Jennie from not collapsing onto the bed. The promise of a similar taking keeps tremulous limbs steady.

Then fingers scratch at her back, tracing its length, nails digging in just enough to cause a minor hiss and send a shiver down her spine. This is Jennie's only advance notification.

She keens forward when Lisa intensely strokes her to heated ruin then penetrates again, entering the tighter hole on one push of a single digit. It feels deeper in this position. That should have been enough to have Jennie at Lisa's mercy but then she's being doubly penetrated once more, Lisa pushing in lower with two fingers.

"Lisa!"

"Jennie," Lisa grunts between panting thrusts, not letting up on her continued campaign to completely dismantle Jennie. She rubs her lower back to calm her, even as her other hand doesn't let up. Jennie registers that the fullness making breathing difficult is the effort of only one hand, thumb and fingers coordinating, working synchronously, feverishly. "Take it, love."

"I ... oh god."

Her body responds automatically, knees widening on the bed and opening up her stance to give Lisa more leverage. She paws for purchase on the rumpled sheets at the same time lifting her ass higher, hips canting in demand for more. Presented for the taking. Drool falls from her open mouth.

Lisa ruts into her.

Relentless.

Unforgiving.

She is gushing by the time Lisa snakes fingers around to her clit again, massaging mercilessly.

It becomes a collaborative effort between both hands to make Jennie feel like she is at the edge of reason, the cogency of thoughts loosely held together only by the will to endure such breaking bliss. She pushes back as much as she can, increasing the force of impact every time Lisa's fingers connect with her walls, hips colliding into the back of her thighs.

"That's it."

Lisa's encouragement drives her on.

They move together for awhile, communicating only through fucks and harder and faster, but then Lisa adds a third finger to join her other two. There shouldn't be any room left but, to Jennie's astonishment, it slides in fully. She is parched of words of being filled so completely. A hand flies to Lisa's wrist, needing a moment to adjust to the stretch.

"You're doing so good," Lisa praises, slowing her thrusting into a complete rest. Jennie's walls protest, clenching in despair at the softening of their rough play. They seize Lisa's fingers harder, flattered by, "So wet for me."

Jennie's upside-down view corroborates Lisa's statement of the obvious. Thighs and core shiny beyond a trickling stream.

An involuntary twitch of Lisa's fingers results in more flowing out. Her clit pulsating for release, it's a dual reminder of the need to carry on.

Lisa is sheathed tightly inside her, it seems impossible that there's any space to manoeuvre. Nonetheless, her muscles relax, sucking Lisa in some more, proving Jennie entirely wrong.

As soon as she reaches behind to pull Lisa closer by the hip, indicating her readiness to continue, Lisa starts fucking her in earnest again. No easing in. A rapid withdrawal and then an even quicker forward motion.

"Fuck, baby," Jennie thinks she screams but the exclamation belongs to Lisa whose usual quietness is abandoned for exuberant admiration of the yielding body under her. Her vocal lauding swings between words and action. "You," thrust, "feel," push, "amazing," and curl.

Amazing doesn't even begin to describe what Jennie feels. Rapture, possibly. Transcendent, maybe.

The constant slapping of Lisa's pelvis against her ass is taking her to new country. Of what landscapes or geographic splendour Jennie couldn't fathom to map at present.

She gives into the pounding, voluntarily submitting to the roughness and encouraging it with a hoarse chanting of Lisa's name.

Sweat pools in the valley of Jennie's breasts, which hang heavy and aching with need. As if reading her mind, Lisa reaches round to knead her breasts. Jennie is grateful for the alleviation of pressure in her nipples as deft fingers work them. They harden under the attention, leaking as a result of the overstimulation. Jennie has no mind to be embarrassed for how Lisa rends her body in supplication. Her breasts sag into Lisa's hand in clear appreciation.

"Oh god." Jennie's cries reach a pitch as her release nears again, "I'm gonna ..."

The promise of relief turns into euphoric agony. Lisa's hand travels down her stomach to repay attention to her clit. It's a gentler pace than before, until Lisa commands once more, soft but stern, " Don't come."

Jennie doesn't understand how she could not but then the engorged muscle is rubbed harder in tight circles causing her to wail. It's a nearly violent pace for several blinding seconds. Tears gather at the corner of her eyes.

"Hold on."

Another command.

More fluids seep out.

"I can't."

Everything burns, ready to erupt. Her head drops to the mattress, no longer able to hold it up. The rest of her body, bent and curved, does its heroic best not to cave too.

"Yes, you can," Lisa purrs into her ear, followed by a tender kiss to its shell.

Jennie shakes her head in protest, a feathered, fingering touch away from wreckage. But then those same fingertips pause their destruction to smooth out her damp hair (though not her desperation). It's what prevents her from saying their safe word and seeking reprieve.

Lisa wipes the spittle from the corner of Jennie's mouth, which chases the finger and sucks it in, needing the comfort. Lisa gently thrusts in her mouth, giving Jennie a temporary distraction from her body's impulse to explode. "Just a little longer."

Jennie knows she's right, that the delay is only for her benefit and to increase the strength of her eventual release. She trusts Lisa with the limits of her body.

So she allows Lisa to edge her several more times like this, bringing her close enough to fall before pulling her back, each time the mountain climb higher to the second orgasm, the precipice steeper. Lisa fucks her hard. A resounding, harsh driving of her fingers in both openings that provoke increasingly sharper cries.

"Baby ... please ..."

Jennie no longer knows what she's asking for.

Sensing her endurance reaching its peak, Lisa pulls her back up by the shoulders until Jennie is in a seated position on her lap, back against her chest, feet planted with knees hitched over Lisa's propped up legs. Tears slide down when Lisa removes her thumb and fingers. It feels painfully, excruciatingly empty.

"Shhhh," Lisa comforts, and angles her head for a kiss to compensate the brief loss. Not wasting time, she pushes back into Jennie from the front, only two fingers though, one in each hole.

"I need to come," Jennie pleads in between ragged breaths, hanging by a thread to consciousness. "Please let me. Please."

"Nearly there," she faintly hears before lips are on her again.

Softness takes over the previous roughness, Lisa's tongue tender and warm in Jennie's mouth, hand gentler on her breast while fingers move in a slow scissoring pattern below.

The contrast is effective.

It feels indescribably intense.

Intimate.

Immense.

Lisa speeds up again, but keeps things soft, and adds to the mix a swipe of her thumb across drenched folds. Jennie loses all coordination thereafter to continue their kissing. She throws her head back, no longer able to hold it up, resting it against Lisa's shoulder. Lisa switches to kissing up and down the column of her throat, bruising in hickies along the way.

"One more finger, okay?" Lisa informs her before jointly widening their legs and adding to the stretch. Jennie's walls flutter open in response and draw her in. "That's it, love. Almost."

Jennie gushes at the promise. She whimpers into Lisa's neck. Moans of please, please, please reverberate in the charged air, seeking mercy against hot skin.

She's at her breaking point.

Lisa quickens her thrusts. Pumps hard.

"Come."

The permission is whispered but Jennie hears it as a loud, cacophonous ringing deafening all other noise. Her body locks up. Time suspends. Muscles tense in unbearable wait before they uncoil in pure ecstasy.

Jennie comes on a silent scream that wracks through her bones, rattles her rib cage and makes the room shake.

It is followed by an odd sound, something like liquid splattering, that she's too busy falling apart to discern.

As Jennie rides her orgasm-the most searing ever-she has the wherewithal to enter Lisa at the same time. Their cries meld together. Names tumble forth, a staccato of sounds shortened by elision of vowels.

Once the room stops spinning and their panting tapers off, Lisa falls on her back against the mattress, taking Jennie with her but wrapping arms tightly around her stomach to prevent toppling. They stare up at the ceiling. Heads at the feet of the bed. Everything is upside down but so, so right again.

There is only silence and soft breaths for awhile.

After such a shattering fall, Lisa's arms keep Jennie safe. Her warmth, the glue holding together Jennie's fragments.

-

"I am so in love with you, Jennie," Lisa tells her from beneath once their breathing regulates. "In case that wasn't clear the first go."

She gently draws mindless patterns on Jennie's stomach and further softens Jennie in her boneless state.

"That was ... um," Jennie searches for the word, "quite the clarity."

They both laugh.

"Wanted to be thorough."

Despite Lisa's dominant performance, shyness returns to her voice. Jennie loves the contradiction. Loves her.

She rolls over onto her side, intending to reposition to face Lisa but is only encouraged to travel further along the bed towards a different spot on the mattress.

Jennie ends up settling back against Lisa's front. Once their bodies are rearranged into the same entanglement before things escalated, the reason for the move away from the centre of their physical activity becomes apparent. Her eyes bulge at where her gaze lands.

Something else clear. There's a pool of liquid.

She squirted.

"Omg," Jennie whispers in horror and hides her face into the pillow of Lisa's arm.

"I know," Lisa says proudly, her voice all but smug when she catches on to what Jennie is referencing.

Jennie bites into her pillow, not hard enough to break skin, but with enough teeth to cause Lisa to yelp.

"So ungrateful," Lisa laughs in her ear, pinching her waist in reprimand.

That prompts Jennie to turn in her arms. Instead of a counter-argument, she traces Lisa's face with an adoring look at first, followed by gently trailing fingers that ghost over the raised bumps of her skin. Jennie's studious examination causes Lisa's eyes to drift close, her laughter petering out to quiet exhales.

They breathe in the soft moment.

The afterglow has yet to fade and Jennie takes in the milk and honey sheen left behind by the sweat of their efforts. Lisa radiates happiness. Her lips are slightly parted, cheeks a dusty salmon colour made all the prettier framed by messy hair that's indecisive on which hue of brown it wants to be. Jennie is momentarily at a loss for words, the allure of an after-sex Lisa is indescribable.

For the second time that night, the sight stops and starts Jennie's heart at once, the space between the stuttered beats only large enough for her to profess with immeasurable awe, "You are so beautiful."

Jennie waits until Lisa reopens her eyes to tell her more, "I am incredibly fond of you and your hands. Incredibly grateful."

It's unspoken she means more than the sex or the numbing orgasms that have made her throat raw and her words a raspy approximation of speech.

Lisa nods understanding of the implied gratitude for their presence here, in each other's arms. The world outside is nothing more than hazy scenery against the painted light of their reaffirmed love.

"It wasn't too much?" Lisa asks after some time, a hint of unnecessary insecurity playing out in the bite of her bottom lip.

Jennie shakes her head slowly and then soothes the worry with her tongue. It glides over the chapped skin before she dips inside to taste Lisa and herself again.

They kiss, long and full, and then kiss some more, Jennie clarifying her stance on adequacy and abundance when it comes to Lisa. Until lungs give up, until it becomes more humming than kissing. They hold one another close.

For the longest time, when they were separated, Jennie wondered if she could still hear Lisa's heartbeat across the ocean. It was a ridiculous thought, but on her most lonely nights, it didn't deter her from trying to listen for it. She'd go on their rooftop where the air is thinner and the city stills beneath her feet while she looked up to the starless sky. She'd slow her own heartbeat until it almost stops, the near-silence making acoustic room for the double sound that had been in her ears for years.

But no matter how much she willed it, it stayed quiet. Always.

Until six months ago. A murmuring return.

Until two months ago. The susurrus of love growing.

Until two hours ago. Two minutes ago. Two hearts. Beating loudly as one.

On some days, over the last four years, when it felt like hers would never make a sound again, Jennie had struggled to get out of bed. No will to see anyone or feel anything other than her sheets and the tattered softness of Lisa's college sweatshirt covering her torso.

This time, the desire not to leave can be narrowed down to that steady pounding, the soft puffs of air above her head where it now cradles under Lisa's chin. To the arm that's stroking her back, the knees bent and legs entangled with hers, and the smallness of space between chests. To the swell of lips and the burning sensation at the join of thighs that throbs for more.

Not enough, she thinks.

Just as her eyes close and their breathing syncs to the same degree as their hearts, Jennie answers Lisa's question. A faint but firm reply.

"Never with you."

She falls asleep dreaming of how to make the space between Lisa's 'never empty' and Jennie's 'never enough' a permanent residence.

A long, lasting beat.

-