Page 70 of The Fall

“Sleeping bags,” Lusa explained. “Not as warm as furs, but they’re warmer than they look.”

Caoimhe did not look like she understood, but she kept her mouth shut.

Lusa peeled the overstretched top over her head, not without some effort. Her nipples stiffened in the cold. Caoimhe was so focused on them that she missed Lusa’s eye roll entirely.

“Can I?”

Lusa nodded. Every time they’d had sex, it had started with Kerr attacking her. This was the first time she’d asked. Denying her felt wrong. Not that she wanted to.

Caoimhe’s height played to her advantage. Her forehead wrinkled in worship, taking each breast in turn.

As lovely as it was, Lusa’s neck hurt from standing bowed over. Tents were for sleeping, not standing. Pulling away, she tugged at the hem of Caoimhe’s shirt.

She shivered, skin exposed to the cold. “How do you do this without a Thermabulle?” Caoimhe’s arms wrapped tightly around her waist, soaking in as much warmth as she could.

Lusa smirked and slipped into one of the sleeping bags. Two, because she didn’t want to be presumptuous, but in hindsight, she should have known better.

Lusa wriggled awkwardly into the sack while Caoimhe watched. A moment later, she threw her TacPants at her for staring. Then her underclothes. Caoimhe rushed to finish getting undressed, even as she shivered.

Lusa held the corner of the sleeping bag open for her. Caoimhe lay beside her, wincing as a shelf of rock dug into her side. “My bed is way more comfortable, yeah?”

“Let’s see what we can do about that.” Lusa spread her legs and pulled Caoimhe on top of her. She fit like a puzzle piece.

“How are you so warm?” Caoimhe nuzzled her cheek against the swell of Lusa’s breast.

Lusa threaded her fingers through her hair. “My body is used to this, I guess?”

Caoimhe placed a kiss against her skin. Then another. A bite followed by an impish grin.

Pursing her lips in mock scorn, Lusa pulled Caoimhe into a proper kiss. Tongues dancing hesitantly, like wallflowers on a first date. This level of exposure was too new. Too close. They both knew they were about to make a terrible heartbreak even worse, but neither could stop. They could only slow down and hope the crash wouldn’t be as bad.

But no matter how slowly you accelerate, terminal velocity always arrives. Caoimhe was the first to push deeper. Lusa followed with a ferocity that had only been waiting for permission. Open mouths, hollowed cheeks and sore jaws, followed by cramped foreheads, stiff from frowning as if doing so could make your tongue longer, your mouth wider, get more of the other into yourself.

Lusa fingers laced around the back of Caoimhe’s neck. She tried to pull away, but only whimpered. With her cyberware disabled, Lusa was too strong.

Sitting up, sleeping bag bunched around her waist, Caoimhe trembled like an aspen leaf, exposed in the cold air.

“Did I do something wrong?” Lusa asked between laboured breaths. She hadn’t been close to losing control yet, but the possibility existed. Caoimhe wore a delirious grin.

“I need to get something.” Caoimhe crawled out of the sleeping bag and reached for her rucksack.

Rolling onto her side, Lusa leaned on her elbow. Caoimhe had freckles on her tiny bum. Lusa wondered if she knew that.

Caoimhe held what she had been looking for aloft – the newest model of the absurdly large vibrator she’d mentioned earlier. Even in the fading twilight, it glowed an eye-blistering shade of pink.

Lusa’s mouth hung open. “I told you to pack for camping and you took that to mean bring the largest vibrator I own?”

Ignoring her, Caoimhe listed off its features. “There’s a rumble function at the tip and the wearable end.” She pointed to both ends as if it weren’t obvious. “Dual motors that can be synched to your heart rate monitor and dopamine level sensors, though,” Caoimhe raised an eyebrow. “I guess you don’t have a heart rate monitor.”

Lusa shook her head. “No hormone regulators either.”

“Just raw dogging life, yeah?” Caoimhe continued, unbothered. “This model has a magstrip attachment points, so no harness necessary.”

“And you have…” Lusa narrowed her eyes, but couldn’t make out mag strips on Caoimhe anywhere near where the toy would logically attach.

“They’re subdermal.” Caoimhe drew her fingers along the lines of her vulva. “I got them for my birthday one year. Back when Chalice wasn’t such an arsehole, yeah?” She looked around the tent, avoiding eye contact. “That’s not weird, is it?”

Weird was the wrong word for it. Lusa wasn’t inexperienced, but toys were not something she had ever used, aside from the tiny vibrator Sparx had snuck back from Tyton for her. The Lake didn’t have anything like that, or if it did, Lusa didn’t know about it.