Afterwards, they lay still. Ellie felt happy. She felt warm and comfortable and soft with happiness. She was breathing slowly, and could feel sweat slowly drying on her skin.
Mia’s sweat and hers, all mixed together. She liked that idea. She wiped her hand over her breasts, where she was damp, then held her fingers near her face and breathed in. It was a nice mix, the smell of Mia’s skin, and Ellie’s too, and the last of their wetness as well, still on her fingers. She liked how the scent of their bodies mixed on her hand. Together, she decided, they made a very nice smell.
That seemed strangely important.
After a moment, Mia sat up and opened a window above the bed. A breeze came in, and suddenly Ellie’s skin felt pleasantly cooler. Mia pulled the curtain back across and lay back down.
Ellie shifted. She lay carefully so she was very close to Mia. Close, but without touching, so there was still space for air to get between them and help them cool down. She settled herself there, then she slid her foot, and slid her hand, and made contact just with those, against Mia’s ankle and hip.
She didn’t quite know why.
She turned her face sideways, and watched Mia as she did.
She watched Mia stare at the ceiling, then watch Mia smile, when Ellie touched her. Mia smiled, without looking over at Ellie, then reached out and put and put her hand on Ellie’s breast. She stroked slowly, teasing Ellie’s nipple.
Ellie still felt a little sensitive there. She took Mia’s hand, and twisted their fingers together, and held it instead.
Mia smiled.
After a while she looked at Ellie’s hand.
“Nice nails,” Mia said. “That’s a nice colour.”
“Yeah,” Ellie said, then held up her hand. “Oh, wait. Which?”
“Those,” Mia said, looking at the hand she was holding, then at Ellie’s other one. “What else?”
Ellie lifted one foot.
“Oh,” Mia said, and grinned. “Yeah, those too.”
“For you,” Ellie said, because she thought she might as well just be honest. “I panicked and did it at work.”
“Okay.”
“In the bathroom.”
Mia kissed Ellie, lazily. Slowly tipping her face sideways, stretching slightly to reach. “You don’t have to panic,” Mia said. “Not about me. Ever.”
Ellie shrugged and didn’t answer because she was fairly sure she would again. She didn’t argue, though, because right now she felt happy.
“I like your room,” Ellie said.
Mia nodded slowly.
“I almost didn’t stay because your bed was made,” Ellie said.
Mia looked at her, surprised. “What?”
“It was, I don’t know. Intimidating. I almost ran away.”
Mia kept looking at her.
“Seriously,” Ellie said.
“Would it help to know I made the bed this morning because I thought we’d end up here?”
Ellie looked at her.
“And hid the dirty laundry in the wardrobe?”
“That might help a little.”
Mia grinned. “You,” she said. “Are just…”
“Yeah,” Ellie said. “I know.”
Ellie kept lying as she was, her face sideways to look at Mia. Mia was lying the same way, looking back at her.
They lay side by side, both looking at each other.
They kept looking.
Until somehow looking because staring. Because at some point, Ellie thought, they’d both been doing it for too long, and then neither could look away.
Ellie didn’t want to stop staring in case it was rude, in case this look was significant, and she hadn’t understood, and Mia ended up hurt because Ellie had just carelessly stopped. And she didn’t want to stop, even though she knew Mia was probably thinking the same.
Sex was complicated, Ellie thought, in ways she didn’t always quite understand. Sex always made her think too much about things like this, and sometimes she didn’t quite know why.
She looked at Mia, into Mia’s eyes, and wondered what this was.
Staring after sex seemed very unlike Mia.
“What are we doing?” Ellie said in the end.
“Um, taking a break?”
“No, I mean…”
“Fucking?”
“No,” Ellie said. “Don’t be difficult. This. The staring.”
Mia shrugged, and finally looked away. She looked up at the ceiling instead.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t want to stop and offend you, I guess.”
Ellie started to laugh.
“What?”
“Same,” Ellie said and laughed some more.
Mia grinned, and was about to look back at Ellie. Ellie saw her start to move, and quickly said, “Don’t,” and pushed Mia’s face so she was looking towards the ceiling again instead.
Mia was still grinning, Ellie noticed.
She was grinning, and when Ellie took her hand back, and flopped it above her head, she noticed as it passed her face that that it still smelled slightly like both of them. She really liked that smell, she decided. She liked how that smell was everything about what they’d just done. Them, mixed together.
She liked Mia.
“You’re so fucking complicated,” Ellie said, after a while.
“I’m really not. Just around you.”
“Around me?”
Mia shrugged.
“What does that mean?” Ellie said.
“Don’t know.”
“So you’re just not going to say?”
Mia smiled. “Pretty much.”
“Well don’t then,” Ellie said. “I don’t care.”
They lay a little longer.
Ellie sat up, and started touching Mia. Touching her body, and feeling the shapes of her. She’d never really looked at a woman’s body before. Not like this. Not without judging or envy or wondering if something she was wearing would look good on Ellie.
Not to just stroke gently, and appreciate, and feel sexy fondness for. Not just looking.
Mia looked nice. Mia looked like someone Ellie wanted to touch more. It was a little confusing, but she touched all the same. Ellie liked the shape of Mia. She liked Mia’s hip, and the long slow curve up past Mia’s waist to her shoulder. She liked how Mia’s skin was soft, and her arms were sleek and slim. She liked lips and breasts and nipples that went hard when Ellie touched with a damp finger. She like Mia’s feet, and hair, and the way her legs were hard and smooth and silky.
She still liked Mia’s legs.
Mia was watching Ellie, idly, watching Ellie touch. Ellie looked up, and saw Mia’s face, and wondered what her expression meant. It seemed serious, all of a sudden.
“What?” Ellie said.
“Nothing.”
“You look like you’re going to say we need to talk,” Ellie said.
“Why would I say that?”
“People do. You know, right after they have sex.”
“Right after?” Mia said. “Not, you know, during…”
Ellie sat there for a moment. Then she poked Mia’s side. “You’re so, so funny.”
Mia grinned. “So this talking after,” Mia said. “This happens to you a lot?”
Ellie didn’t answer. She sat there glaring. After a while she stuck out her tongue.
“Sorry,” Mia said.
“No you aren’t.”
Mia grinned some more.
“Do you want to talk?” Ellie said. She began touching Mia’s knees, feeling her skin. It was soft, but a little less soft them everywhere else.
“We could,” Mia said.
“But do you want to?” Ellie said.
“About this?”
Ellie shrugged. She looked at Mia’s legs for a while.
“Maybe we should,” Mia said. “Just, you know, talk about this. Say stuff. If you think we ought to.”
“Only if you want do,” Ellie said. “I don’t. But if you do, if you have some big speech all planned, then go ahead, I guess.”
Mia looked at Ellie. She kept looking, almost like a stare, like she was wondering what to do.
“Don’t,” Ellie said, and pushed at Mia’s face again until Mia was looking the other way. Mia let her, and grinned some more.
“So talk,” Ellie said.
“Who says I want to?”
“You just did. So do. What’s this big thing you want to tell me?”
Mia looked at the ceiling. She thought for a while. “I don’t know. Nothing really.”
“Except how that’s not true, because you just said…”
“Except that, yeah.”
“So what?” Ellie said. “Tell me.”
Mia shrugged. “I don’t know. Just, still friends, I guess. If that’s all right? That we don’t need to make more of this than that.”
“Oh,” Ellie said, and wasn’t sure why she was disappointed.
They were both quiet for a moment.
“Do you want to?” Mia said, watching Ellie’s expression. “Make more of it?”
Ellie honestly wasn’t sure. She didn’t know, and she couldn’t tell what Mia wanted either.
“Do you?” Ellie said, in the end, because it was simpler just to ask.
“No way,” Mia said. “You don’t get to do that. I’m asking.”
“Why?” Ellie said. “Because actually you do?”
“No.”
“Because for all the talk,” Ellie said, watching her, thinking. “About how you just want sex and nothing complicated is better…”
“Stop it. I’m just asking if you’re okay with this?”
“That’s really all?”
“Right now, that’s all.”
Ellie slowly nodded. “Then yeah, I’m okay with this.”
“And just friends is fine?”
“Yep,” Ellie said, and sat there for a while, looking at Mia, stroking her leg. “Kind of full of yourself, aren’t, you?” she said.
Mia looked at Ellie, and grinned some more, and then kissed one of Ellie’s hands.
“You’re really okay?” Mia said.
“I really am.”
Mia nodded, and seemed to relax. She watched Ellie stroke.
After a while Ellie leaned over, and kissed Mia, and pressed her face to Mia’s tummy. She stayed there, breathing in the smell of her.
“What’re you doing?” Mia said, after a while.
“Sniffing,” Ellie said. “I always sniff my friends.”
“So don’t believe you.”
Ellie smiled. “So don’t care.”