AN: Sorry for delay! Was a busy weekend, but hope you enjoy this one !!
I seemed to have been knocked wide awake.
As well as my crippling heartache, I'd been gifted with overwhelming fear. I had far too many questions. I was sure she'd been coming in the house whilst everyone was out during the day, taking what she could, most likely to pawn and pay into her addiction. She was still using. I'd seen it in her face; in the sores on her lips, and her sunken eyes, and the smell of her breath.
My fake illness started to become less convincing, and I resorted to a new stage of lying. I woke up each morning of the next week, got into my uniform, told my dad goodbye and went around the street corner, waiting for him to leave. Then I'd unlock the front door, toss my bag down and sit on the bottom step of the stairs with the bat. Every day. I was far too worried to go to school and pretend everything in my life was normal. It was the furthest from normal it had ever been, and I wasn't sure when I could go back.
Did I even want to?
Of course, there were times when it was boring. Sitting on the bottom step of my staircase wasn't the most exciting of pastimes. The bat was quite heavy, and it made my palms feel numb and rough to the touch. I'd been squeezing it and rolling it in my hand when I got bored.
Jackie didn't call. She didn't come by either, and I started wishing she would. But I'd put off my reasoning for too long. Jackie had never been properly angry at me before, and we'd never fallen out, so I was in unfamiliar waters. I didn't know how I'd say sorry, or make up a convincing excuse, or whether she'd even forgive me at all. The idea of her not forgiving me made me so anxious that my leg bounced.
Along with the reminder that Mio had given up on me, Jackie leaving also made me cry. A few times, I'd cried on the step, and once on the street corner while waiting for my dad to leave.
And he seemed to take longer everyday. My legs got tired standing on the corner quickly, and even after I saw his car leave, I hung around for a few minutes more - just in case he came back. The first day I went into the house, he came back looking for something and in a moment of jumbled nerves, I scrambled out the back door and over the fence. I sent myself flying into a thicket of bushes, and tore the back of my socks, but he mentioned nothing of it later, nor did he come out to the backyard to inspect the swaying bushes or the fluttering of my limbs up by the fence. I was sure he hadn't even seen, even as I flailed about, trying to shake out the branches from under my blouse and skirt.
That day, I'd torn the back of my thighs too - only with little scratches, but they were lasting. The next morning over, I treated them on the bottom step with rubbing alcohol and gauze pads. The bat was resting against the wall beside me, within arm's reach. I never let it stray any further than that. After the day she'd pushed me to the floor, I decided that the next time I would not hesitate. I would knock her out with it. I would protect my house and my dad, and me. And she'd never come back.
For a few days, no one came to the house at all.
Those days were utterly boring. Some hours I almost dozed off through, my head leaned against the bannister. But as to wake myself up, I would jog around the house, leaving all the downstairs doors open so that I could do a full lap. Then I started skidding across the floorboards in my socks like I was ten again.
It was a Thursday when my anxiety eased slightly. Just so that I could doze off for a few hours. I was almost certain that my mother would not come that day. There was a settled feeling of exhaustion in my stomach, one that made my brain stop working so fast, one that made the wooden bannister much more comfortable than usual. I'd brought my pillow down with me, and had it leaned against one of the beams. Just for an hour, I thought.
When I slept, I dreamt soundly. No adrenaline, no jolting to wake, no terrors. I dreamt that I was in The Time Traveller's Wife, that I couldn't stop skipping through time, and Mio was waiting back in a shared house. Waiting for me. I dreamt that I visited her when she was younger; almost the same height, longer hair that fell down against her back, big smiles that made her eyes squint closed.
In the dream, it was a frigid, winter night. I was in a puffer coat, my chin nuzzled into a scarf, hands plunged in my pockets and balled to keep the chill from creeping in. I could feel it. The fingers of ice, the dropping temperature, hear her voice. Across the street, she was waiting at a crossing point, waving goodbye to a group of girls, similar age. She was in a pair of tights, a navy skirt and a button-up coat. Her scarf was the same one I was wearing.
Her eyes found me from across the road. A car whizzed between us. In the dream, I didn't feel that aching hole that had burned into me from missing her. I felt comfort, relief. Like it was a common emotion. It was a different life. She was smiling into her scarf, like I was smiling into mine.
She came across the road with quick, skipping feet - an obvious hurry in her step.
"You're back," she said, and had a much heavier accent than I knew her to have.
"How old now?" I asked.
"Eighteen," she replied, "what are you here to tell me?"
I shrugged, my scarf lifting up against my cheeks. "Nothing too much."
She just stared at me. The ends of her fingers were bright pink in the cold. Her hair was half tucked into the wrap of her scarf, framed about her heart-shaped face.
"Don't get married," I said in the dream. My voice was floating, hanging on the frozen wind, my vision was wobbling. She was talking to me, and I think I was replying, but all I could hear was a car horn honking. It was so loud.
I woke, sharply inhaling. Someone was knocking at the door. My sleep-heavy brain immediately registered danger and I clumsily jumped up off the step. My hand fumbled for the bat.
I didn't have time to think about my sweet dream, or try and wake myself up. My anxiety had thrown me back into reality, making my hands tremble.
She wouldn't knock.
I knew she wouldn't knock.
Realising it was only likely to be the mailman, I laid the bat down by my pillow on the step and reached for the door knob. My breathing had only calmed slightly. I tried to steady it with rhythmic breaths, counted in and out, but once the door was open, that rhythm faltered.
My heart dropped into my stomach and shattered at the sight of Mio standing in my front porch. For a moment, I thought about just slamming the door in her face, like I had done to Jackie a week before. The hole in my chest was aching all over again. But I didn't slam the door, I didn't shoo her out. Maybe it was because under the heartache, I'd really been praying that I'd see her again.
But for what?
She looked worried, her eyes skipped over me, not resting in any one place. I couldn't tell what she was thinking at all.
Closing the door on her wouldn't do much. The damage had already been done, just from seeing her so close to me.
I think she wanted to come in, so I stepped aside and nodded her in. She looked at me for a few more seconds before stepping inside and pressing her back to the wall as I closed the door.
"You're not going to school," she said, knitting her brows softly.
I shrugged, standing opposite her, back against the bannister beams. "It's personal."
It's you. But I couldn't say that.
She thought for a moment, then opened her mouth and began to babble an apology:
"I'm sorry, Norah, I really am. I just--"
I stopped her, knowing exactly where she was going with her 'sorry's. And I knew it would hurt, so I didn't want to hear it. "We need to be realistic. We can be normal - just not with each other," I said honestly, swallowing around my swollen heart. Nothing hurt more than such stinging honesty.
I think it stung her too. Her eyebrows dipped into a frown, lower again, and her mouth fell open to bite back.
"What if I don't want to be normal?" She blurted.
I felt an odd anger knot in my chest. "Why wouldn't you? You've got cash, a marriage, family, a massive house and you're stable! That's a normal we could never be!"
"Then I don't want it!" She barked.
Her chest was rising and falling quickly, shallowly. My eyes kept flitting between that and her troubled eyes. I think my chest was pulsing in the same way. A harsh in and out, in and out, in and out. My heart was beating so quickly, I thought it had stopped. Everything in me was fluttering.
"I don't like being scared," she started, her voice slightly breathy, "I don't like being uncertain. But running away from it doesn't make it go away. I shouldn't do that."
"But you can," I said, clenching my jaw, "you have it all."
"Not you," she whispered.
It was so romantic, I almost didn't believe she said it. I started to think that in some strange bend of sound, the words had just been mine inside her mouth. I was breathing manually, as I'd forgotten the autopilot for all my bodily functions. I felt like I was pumping my heart, flowing my blood, blinking on command, thinking about each tiny movement before I made it.
I swallowed hard, feeling my eyes gloss over. "What... what are you saying?"
"No more normal now," she mumbled, stepping to me. There was only a small gap between us anyway. She could probably feel my breath on her lips, it was shallow and rushed. "Not anymore."
The weight of what she was saying was starting to sink in. A whispered 'oh' slipped between my lips. There was something tense and tight between us. The strings were back, knotted between our bodies. She must've tugged on it subconsciously, because in the next moment, we were pressed against each other's mouths bruisingly and my body was pinned to the bannister.
Hands were everywhere, we became a tangle of limbs as we tried to be as close as possible. Her palms were rubbing my hips and tummy so hard that she'd rooted out my blouse from where it was tucked into my skirt. I was feeling her so desperately, smoothing my hands up her arms, over the space where her neck met her shoulder, her nape, her throat, her cheeks. Our mouths were a mess of lips, teeth and tongue, of heavy breath and sounds of satisfaction.
Her hand had slipped under my blouse and was stroking my waist. I was humming into her mouth. I felt her whisper against my lips,
"I need you, Norah."
A little sob broke in my throat, but no tears spilled. "I need you too, I need you so much."
My entire body was pulsing. It was so hot, I thought I would burn up against her hands. Her hands on my waist grabbed possessively and started to pull me back with her gently. Our legs stepped clumsily together, searching for somewhere to fall back on. We stopped first against the wall, lips still moulded together. My hands slipped up her shirt, cupping her breasts over her bra, feeling the way they spilled slightly against the tight material.
We were moving again, backing up into the living room, almost tripping with each cautious step. Neither of us would let go of each other, our hands were fused into skin, mouths connected with no parting. The bend of her knees hit the arm of the couch and buckled over, her body tumbled down onto the cushions, pulling me on top of her. Still, our mouths barely pulled apart. I was straddled over her lower stomach, my hands still under her shirt and hers under mine. Her lips dragged from my mouth, kissing down against my jaw then my neck, finding my pulse point and soothing her tongue over it. She was mumbling my name against my skin. I was sighing with a wobbly lip, shaking my hips.
Her hand slipped out from under my blouse and began to pop the buttons. I could feel the fumbling desperation in her fingers, the way they trembled to undo the tight buttons and tug my shirt back from me. I was only wearing my plain white bra that I wore under my school shirts, nothing sexy or fancy. It was a little embarrassing to think she was going to see that when she was probably wearing something dark and lacy, something she knew would make me swoon.
I'd never felt Mio be so passionate. There was an animalistic lust radiating off of her. I could feel it coming from her mouth, where she was kissing and nipping and sucking at my neck, making me gasp and shiver. My cheeks were flushed red hot, as were the tops of my ears. I could feel my heartbeat in the tips of my fingers. Her hands were eager and rushed as they yanked my blouse back, helping me shrug it off, then tossing it across the room. It heard it hit the floor softly, somewhere by the television, out of view.
I was so turned on that I thought I would faint. If she touched me, I knew I would come too quickly. Even with no pressure on the places I needed the most, I could feel the climbing heat of a brewing orgasm in the lower depths of my stomach. Her lips on my neck and my jaw and my ear didn't help, they only made me whimper pathetically into her hair. The very smell of her too was dizzying. It was just Mio, all of her against all of me, raw and wanting, needing.
The sudden absence of her lips against my skin made my eyes open slowly. I was in a daze. Her mouth was very red, so were her cheeks. Her hands were on my back, searching for my bra clasp.
"It's not a very sexy bra," I said in a breath when she started fiddling with the clasp.
She smiled and kissed my collarbone gently. "You're very sexy," she was repeating what I'd said back in that house. I hummed at that, arching my chest up against her mouth.
The clasp sprung back and the straps began to slide down my arms. Her mouth came off my skin again as she flung the bra too, like my shirt, off of me. I felt too bare, and too alone, so I hooked my hands under her shirt and started to pull it over her head. Her head popped out of the neck, hair ruffled, cheeks flushed. Her bra was black, a slight lacy frill over the cups. It was almost too pretty to remove.
Had she been expecting this? Had she dressed up so pretty just for me to take it off of her? The thought only aroused me further. I was thinking of it as I reached around to undo it.
We kissed again, messily, mouths wet and hot. Our breasts were pressed against one another as we continued to melt into each other, the room filled with little sighs and whimpers of lust. That hunger in her struck up again and her lips travelled down from my mouth, making a stop at my neck, running over the marks she'd made. Then she was cupping my small breasts in her hands, kneading them, squeezing the tiny flesh in her palms. Her head bowed to them, kissing the swell of them. I gasped at the sensation of her wet lips anywhere but my mouth. Everything she did felt incredibly skilled, like she'd learnt my body inside and out in seconds. I knew she had when her tongue swiped over my nipple. I whined, my lashes fluttering as that heat continued to build in my stomach.
She sucked my nipple between her lips, lapping her tongue over it inside her mouth as I continued to whimper and rock my hips against her body. Her hands were on my ass, pressing me as close to her as I could.
This is what it feels like to be really wanted, I thought.
Her hands were under my skirt, groping me over my underwear, playing with the hem like she was just thinking of pulling them down there. Perhaps she wanted to tear them. Her finger sometimes brushed too low, while her tongue was still swirling around my nipple, and I wondered if she could feel the heat. Maybe she could feel how wet I was, maybe she could feel the damp heat close to her fingertips.
Her head lifted slowly. "Lean back, please," she said softly, kissing my mouth once more.
I leaned back out of her lap, sliding off until my back was touching the couch arm. Her hands crept up my thighs, slipping under my skirt and hooking into my underwear. I was breathing shallowly, my gaze flitting between her dark eyes and my underwear coming down my thighs. Once they were at my knees, I whimpered in embarrassment, seeing the shiny damp patch marked against their middle. I went to cover it with my hand, but she caught it and linked our fingers, shifting my hand back down by my hip. She was looking below my underwear, staring right at it with blown pupils and red cheeks. Her index finger traced down the slit, making my hips jump.
"Norah... you're so wet," she whispered, pulling her finger back slowly to show a connecting string of my arousal.
I clamped my hand over my eyes, my lip wobbling. I was so embarrassed! She could see too clearly how much I wanted her.
"That's embarrassing!"
She was still running her fingers through my folds, collecting it on her fingertips. My hips were shaking, that heat was climbing.
"Look..." She said gently, kissing the back of my hand. I looked at her, pulling away my hand slowly, swallowing down my burning shame. Her fingers were wet, they glistened with me. "For me?"
I nodded honestly, watching her smile. With her clean hand she held my jaw tenderly, her other, wet hand she moved close to my mouth. I'd never seen her so aroused, it was obvious she couldn't think of anything else besides me and I liked it that way. I'd come to quite like being vulnerable in her arms, because I knew she wouldn't purposely hurt me. She was patient, and as was I.
I knew what she wanted, so I obediently opened my mouth and pushed my tongue, flat, past my parted lips. She pressed the finger coated with me down onto my tongue and I tasted myself. I'd never done such a thing! It was perverted, and so unlike us both, but so sexy.
"So good," she praised, stroking my hair behind my ear.
This was us with no boundaries, with no walls, without worry.
She shifted off of the couch, onto her knees at its foot, hands on my thighs. I was in only my skirt and my school knee-highs, whilst she was kneeling in just her navy trousers, bare from the waist up. Gently, she rotated me so that I had my knees level with her face and my legs were hanging over the edge of the couch. She's going to put her mouth on me, I thought, breath fluttering in my throat.
She flipped my skirt up against my stomach, then trailing her fingers along the insides of my thighs. She bowed her head and her breath tickled my skin there. I jerked my hips and whined, not caring how desperate I looked anymore. She smiled a little at that, then hooked my thighs up onto her shoulders, bringing my centre right up to her lips. My head was spinning with the anticipation. I knew that tongue was deft, I knew it had skill, I knew it would make me feel light-headed - I'd thought it ever since she first slipped it into my mouth. I'd dreamt about it. Touched myself thinking about it. And then, it was right there, right in front of me.
Her lips touched it first. I gasped. No tongue, just her bottom lip, dragging slowly over the bundle of nerves that was aching to be licked. Then she did. And I moaned throatily, my fingers threading into her hair and holding. Then again, and again, and she sucked on it.
It was a higher pleasure. It was heaven, bliss, godlike. It was like nothing I'd ever felt before - it was better. Her mouth was so wet, and it was so hot. Her tongue licked stripes, lapped and made flat circles, all while I mewled and moaned. My toes were curled and tense, as were my fingers in her silky hair.
She wasn't just licking me, she was tasting me, feeling me, memorising my most intimate area. It was far more romantic than I'd give it credit for. Romance seemed to be our thing that day.
I couldn't think. I couldn't think about anything besides her mouth and my rising arousal. The build-up was getting too much, so much that it was almost emotional. My eyes had gotten incredibly teary, my heart was pounding far too quickly.
She started making circles with her tongue again, keeping it up, feeling through my tensed thighs and fingers that I was close. Her eyes were squinted shut, but a few times I'd seen her glancing up at me, scanning over my face.
Where are the strings? Where are they? They were fused into us now.
I was panting. "Mio, please... I'm coming, it's coming," I struggled, rolling my hips against her mouth.
It rose up in me too suddenly. I gasped, moaned and my hips shook and spasmed against her mouth. I'd forgotten how to breathe. My mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water, my bottom lip trembling as wave after wave of my orgasm washed over me.
I hadn't even really realised, until a little sob broke in my throat, but I was crying. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, dripping off my nose and chin and splashing against my bare skin.
Mio's head lifted from between my thighs, hair tousled, chin wet and lips red. Concern immediately flashed across her face. Her arms reached out and pulled me down into her lap, holding me against her.
"Oh, Norah, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. Are you okay?" She babbled, stroking my naked back, keeping my head cradled into her neck.
I was okay. I wasn't crying because I was upset. I'd just had the best orgasm of my life, I was in the arms of the woman who meant everything to me and I felt secured. I was better than okay, and more than saying 'I'm alright', I wanted to say,
I love you.
But what good would that do in a moment like this?
"I'm good," I mumbled against her, laughing through tears, "I'm so fucking good."
I felt her sigh in relief, then laugh a bit herself, kissing my hairline softly and keeping her lips there. Her heart was beating against mine, through her breasts.
"You scared me," she said. Her voice was tired.
"Sorry," I whispered, feeling her kiss my hairline again.
-
We spent the rest of the afternoon laying on the sofa, me draped over her body, us both still topless. Mio kept playing with my hair, twisting it between her fingers and braiding it, only to smooth it apart again. I felt like I was at peace with everything, with the universe. I no longer cared if things were normal or not. What would it matter anymore?
"What now?" I asked quietly.
She tucked my hair behind my ear. "I don't really know."
"Me either," I said.
She nuzzled her nose into my hair and inhaled, whispering, "I wish I could just steal you away."
I hugged into her body tighter, and for the first time since I'd opened the door to her, my heart steadied. I breathed without thinking. The smell of her, the smell of my lover, was more comforting than dizzying. Everything seemed right and still.
"I wish you could too."