Ellie had been lying on the bed, waiting. She sat up when she heard the shower stop. She sat up at the end of the bed, twisted sideways to stare at the bathroom door.
She was excited. She was suddenly nervous. She waited.
A few moments passed.
Mia opened the bathroom door and came out with a towel wrapped around herself. She saw Ellie looking at her, and stopped, surprised. “Hi?” she said.
“Sorry,” Ellie said, and looked away.
“What for?”
“Staring.”
Mia shrugged. She sat on the bed next to Ellie.
They sat. Neither spoke. Neither moved.
After a while, Mia reached up and took the clip out of her hair. She pulled her fingers through it, tugging it all loose, then wrapped it back into a bun and put the clip back in.
Then she sat some more.
Ellie waited, confused. She didn’t know what to say. She wanted to start having sex, to go down on Mia like they were here to do, but suddenly she wasn’t sure how to start. Ellie wanted to start, and wasn’t, but Mia wasn’t starting either. Ellie didn’t know why, or quite what to do, and the longer she sat there, the odder she felt, sitting there naked while Mia was wearing a towel.
It wasn’t going as Ellie had planned.
There was a bang in the distance, a door somewhere down the hall closing. Ellie made herself not jump. This was silly, she decided. They both knew why they were here. They didn’t need to pretend with each other.
“I’m nervous,” Ellie said.
Mia looked at her. “You don’t need to be.”
“I know,” Ellie said. “Because we’ve done this before.”
Mia nodded.
“All the other times have been good.”
“Yep.”
Ellie thought. “Great,” she said after a moment. “Amazing.”
Mia smiled.
“But I’m nervous,” Ellie said.
“Because it’s something new?”
Ellie nodded slowly. It had to be that. It couldn’t be anything else.
“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Mia said.
“I know,” Ellie said. “You’ve told me enough times.”
Mia grinned.
“So stop telling me,” Ellie said. “I get it.”
“Okay.”
“And because it doesn’t matter anyway,” Ellie said. “Since I want to. I really want to. I just honestly do.”
Suddenly Mia looked pleased.
“I’m nervous,” Ellie said. “That’s all. Enough I don’t know how to start.”
“Oh,” Mia said, and nodded some more, but she still just sat where she was.
That made Ellie even more confused. She’d meant what she’d said as a hint. She wanted to tell Mia to start, to ask Mia why they weren’t having sex yet, but she didn’t know how to say it, and Mia seemed not to understand.
It all seemed terribly complicated, Ellie thought.
She sat there thinking. She looked over at the room’s fridge, and at the row of little bottles on the shelf above it. She was tempted, but didn’t really like the idea of what needing a drink to start might mean.
She decided not to, but Mia had already seen her looking.
“Go on,” Mia said.
Ellie shook her head. “Nope. That’s silly. This shouldn’t be a big thing.”
“Except how we’re making it one?”
“Yeah,” Ellie said. “Except that.”
Ellie thought for a moment, and decided she was just going to start. She didn’t know why Mia was suddenly so shy, but Ellie needed this. She was horny and desperate and had been looking forward to this all day. She wasn’t going to let their nerves, or whatever it was, stop them.
Ellie moved. She slid backwards on the bed. Backwards, until she was able to lie down.
She lay.
“Come here,” she said to Mia.
Mia slid back too, and lay beside her.
“Kiss me,” Ellie said, and Mia turned her face sideways so she could.
They kissed, lying side by side, hardly touching except their mouths. After a moment Ellie reached up, and found the tucked-in corner of Mia’s towel, and tugged it free so the towel unwrapped. She pulled the towel off Mia, then kept pulling, being obvious, until Mia lifted up, off the towel, and let Ellie drag it out from underneath her.
Ellie threw the towel off the side of the bed. “It felt scratchy,” she said. “And the sheets are nice, so we may as well be on them.”
Mia nodded, and didn’t say at thing.
Ellie looked at Mia for a moment, and then climbed on top of her. She wanted to slide, all sexy, but she didn’t quite know how. She climbed instead. She sat across Mia, on top of Mia’s legs, and looked down at her, smiling.
“Hi,” Mia said.
Mia was saying that a lot, Ellie thought. Almost as if she was nervous too.
Ellie supposed Mia might be. Mia might be worrying about how this would go. Ellie wanted to worry too. She would be worrying, if she’d been going let herself. If she hadn’t been so excited and horny and desperate for Mia that right now, right this moment, she didn’t care about anything except sex.
Ellie looked down at Mia, and wondered what Mia was thinking. Whether Mia was just nervous, or was worrying about something important, and what it might be. There were a lot of possibilities, Ellie supposed. That Ellie might still change her mind, or that she might think Mia tasted funny. That Ellie would be awful at giving head, or would think Mia was. One or the other. Or both, Ellie thought. That they would, that they’d do this, and it would be dull and ordinary and nothing like what they were both hoping, after all the build-up they’d been giving it. She thought about that, how both of them turning it into such a momentous thing, and decided it probably made everything worse.
She wasn’t sure what to do.
She suddenly felt bad for Mia. It couldn’t be easy, Ellie thought, suddenly worrying when you weren’t used to it. Ellie understood worrying. She understood how it worked. Mia didn’t. Mia, unused to worrying, might be for the first time. She was probably near-paralysed with fear and too much thinking and didn’t know what to do.
Ellie looked at Mia, and wondered if she was right.
Mia wasn’t moving. She wasn’t taking charge, the way she usually did. Ellie had climbed onto her, but Mia wasn’t starting kisses, or sharing touches, or doing anything like what she ordinarily would.
Mia was still. Mia didn’t know what to do.
That meant it was up to Ellie.
That was something of a surprise.
Ellie sat there for a moment, looking down at Mia, thinking. If Mia wasn’t going to start, Ellie decided, then Ellie would herself. She had to. She was too horny, and had been looking forward to this too much, to let it all stop now. Mia was nervous, and wasn’t used to being nervous, and so was weirdly scared, frozen up. But Ellie was used to nervous, and doing things anyway, so now Ellie was going to fix this. She was going to start on her own.
Ellie had to start, so she did. It was really that simple.
She bent over, and kissed Mia, and Mia made a soft, desperate little sound and kissed back.
Ellie kissed, and was terribly pleased, proud she’d guessed right, and also glad her worrying and over-thinking had been useful, for once. She was pleased, and more, suddenly this felt fair. Usually Mia made things happen, but now Ellie was too. Everything was evening out.
Ellie kissed, proud of herself, and Mia kissed her back.
Gratefully, Ellie thought.
Mia seemed to be kissing gratefully.