‘Oh, thank God,’ CJ says. ‘I thought you were going to ignore me forever. Jesus.’
Ash pulls back the door to reveal CJ, so close she must have had her head resting against the wood.
‘I was in the shower,’ Ash says, like the towel and still-wet skin don’t give that away. ‘Sorry. Have you been here long?’
CJ issues a small guffaw that Ash takes to meanyah, fool.
‘I didn’t hear what you said,’ Ash says.
As soon as the words leave her mouth she understands. Ash doesn’t have to have heard what CJ said. She’s here. That fact speaks for itself.
‘Oh.’
And then CJ’s mouth is on hers, CJ’s hands cupping her face, pulling her in like a wave dragging Ash under, and she submits, willingly, happily, hungrily, melting underneath CJ’s purposefulness.
Ash stumbles back, CJ kicking the door closed behind them. The towel from her head is already slipping off, so she pulls it, lets her tangled wet hair fall around her shoulders as CJ continues to probe at her mouth with her tongue. Ash holds the waistband of CJ’s jeans, uses it to pull her close so their belly buttons are pressed against one another. But it’s not enough. Ash doesn’t want to be smushed up alongside CJ, she wants tobeCJ, she wants two bodies to become one,to do this thing they should have done days ago, weeks ago. CJ pulls away.
‘Can I?’ she says, quietly, a hand on the top of Ash’s towel, where one bit is tucked into another to hold it in place.
‘Let me,’ replies Ash. She peels the towel open, throws it to the ground. Standing before CJ naked is the most naked she has ever felt in her life.
CJ looks into her eyes, as if seeking permission to take in the spectacle of her, and she blushes, shyly, when she finally looks down at Ash’s chest. She lets out a small laugh of disbelief, and Ash receives the compliment by sitting down on the bed, shifting herself back, and sprawling out on her forearms so that CJ might see the whole of her. She stretches like a cat, lengthening herself to her best angles, toes pointed, legs flexed, back arched. She watches CJ drink it all in, a look Ash has never seen before floating across her features. To see CJ desire her is to be turned on, and so she parts her legs, just a small amount, just enough so that there is truly no going back.
‘I want to touch you,’ CJ whispers.
Ash nods. ‘So touch me,’ she says.
‘I want to taste you,’ CJ adds.
‘So taste me.’
CJ pops the button of her jeans and shimmies out of them so that she’s in her vest top and a black thong. Her legs are strong, rippled with muscle. She pulls down her underwear, too, then her top. Her tits are pendulous and ripe, nipples like dusky pink marshmallows. She’s the same bronzed colour across her whole body, not a tan-line in sight. Ash allowsherself a smile. She is about to, in no uncertain terms, fuck CJ silly. She’s perfect.
‘Come here,’ Ash says, surprising herself with how sure she sounds, how bossy.
CJ crawls across the bed until she’s got a hand either side of Ash’s head, lowering herself for a slow, sensuous kiss. They stay like that, CJ suspended over Ash, Ash reaching up for more, more, more. She arches her back again, looking for CJ, yearning for her, heat building between her legs, in her veins, pulsating so that her entire body is more alive than it’s been in so very, very long.
‘I don’t really know what I’m doing,’ CJ says into Ash’s mouth, but of course it doesn’t matter because, if this is not knowing what she’s doing, the pair of them are going to be just fine.
‘I do,’ says Ash, and the night passes in an ecstatic, sweaty, fucking sensational blur.
31
CJ
Waking up in Ash’s room is wild. Ash isn’t beside her – she’s in the bathroom, the flush of the toilet being the thing to force open CJ’s eyes, and she’s now lying, stiff as a board, running through the last eight hours on superspeed in her head as she asks herself,am I gay? What the fuck? Am I a lesbian? What does this mean? No. Seriously. What does this mean? I fucked Ash. I! Fucked! Ash!
It’s not enough time. Ash is going to reappear any moment now, and CJ doesn’t know how to be, how to act, how to occupy her own skin. Is she going to be relaxed CJ, cool CJ, peck-on-the-cheek-and-leave-quickly CJ? Or snuggly CJ, or playful CJ, or let’s-do-it-one-more-time CJ? Dammit. She can’t decide.
She hears tooth-brushing noises, and then the running of the tap. Last night was … otherworldly. CJ has always loved sex, found power in sex, in both the taking of pleasure and the giving of it. But sex with Ash? It felt different. New. Is that because she’s a woman, or because CJ’s feelings run deep? She can’t say, because she can’t unpick one truth fromthe other. Ash is a woman, and the body parts are different; how they fit together is different, in a basic physical sense. Men are hard edges, straight lines, stubble. There’s more of them, and they take. The penetration of them, the ploughing, CJ has welcomed this before now, but with Ash it was more like an exchange. CJ wasn’t sure of where she ended and Ash began, of who was pleasuring who, of who was in charge and who was submissive in any given moment. It wasn’t like that. Nobody was in charge. There was just a mass of limbs and energy and eye contact. Fucking hell, the eye contact. They said everything without speaking, watched each other’s faces contort intoyesandmoreandfuck me. CJ’s nipples harden, her body alert. They’d fallen asleep exhausted, and yes, several orgasms apiece in, but the orgasms weren’t even the point, not really, not like it has been before, with men, the destination overriding the journey. With Ash it was all journey, all scenic route.
The bathroom door creeps open.
‘Morning.’
CJ turns. Ash is naked. Proudly so. Her leonine form pads around the bed to crawl back in under the sheet, and CJ observes her like she’s prey. There’s a bite mark on the back of her shoulder. Did CJ do that? She must have.
‘Sorry if I woke you,’ Ash says, moving a pillow to sit up against the headrest. ‘I have this thing, as soon as I wake up I have to pee, brush my teeth, wash my face and moisturise. Like, I have to get the sleep off me, if that makes sense.’ She shudders, as if even the recent memory of morning breath is enough to undo her. ‘Only day I don’t do all that is Christmasmorning, because on Christmas morning I’m allowed to eat my selection box for breakfast and for some reason doing that with clean teeth feels illegal? It has to be unbrushed teeth. Plus, you know, there’s all the little kids around, my sisters’ kids, and we’re hunting for Santa, checking the reindeers have eaten their carrots and the big man himself has left crumbs of mince pie from his midnight snack we left out. They won’t want to have to wait for Auntie Ash’s morning routine. So. Anyway. You’re staring at me like I’m talking too much, which I am, because I feel a bit nervous, truth told, and as we’ve long established now, when I’m nervous I babble. Hell, even when I’m not nervous I babble. I’m a babbler. A talker. Especially when met by total silence? Are you OK?’ Ash grants herself permission to breathe, closes her eyes with a hint of a smile, in on the joke of herself, and then tries again. ‘CJ. Hello. How are you today?’
