Page 58 of Close Reading

She makes a sound against my mouth. Low, wanting. I pull back. I look at her. Her face is flushed and tear-streaked and beautiful and I want her so much my hands hurt with it.

She sees it. She sees whatever is on my face, and her breath catches and she reaches for the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head.

The kitchen air on her bare shoulders. Her bra. Her skin.

I pull my sweater over my head.

“Come here,” she says.

The bras come off, mine first, then hers. She pulls me against her and the feeling of her breasts against mine is a sentence I have no language for.

And then I need more.

The rest comes off. Pants, underwear, hers and mine, the removal urgent and clumsy and mutual, her hands on my waistband and mine on hers, both of us pulling and kicking free and the clothing ends up somewhere that is not on our bodies and I do not care where.

She slides down against the cabinet, her back against the wood, pulling me with her. We go down together, graceless, laughing, her hands on my hips guiding me as we sink. The linoleum is cold and hard against bare skin.

“God, my butt. Hang on.” She reaches sideways and drags the kitchen mat from in front of the sink: thick memory foam, faded sunflowers. She shoves it under herself, settles back against the cabinet, and looks up at me.

I settle over her left thigh, one knee on either side, cushioned by the sunflower mat, my belly against hers, my breasts against hers, the full warm press of us. I brace myself against the cabinet with one hand while my leg slides between hers and presses against the heat of her.

She is wet against my thigh. I can feel it, the heat of her directly on my skin, and I am wet against hers, and the feeling is so overwhelming that my mind produces no analysis. No framework. No catalog. Just the sensation of two women’s bodies pressed together on a kitchen floor, wet and bare and aching.

She moves first. A slow roll of her hips, and the movement grinds her against my thigh.

Her breasts against mine, the slide of them, the soft heaviness shifting with every roll of her hips. Our stomachs pressing together, warm skin on warm skin. My nipples are so hard they ache and every point of contact sends a current straight down through my body to the place where I am pressing against her. I am making sounds, the sounds that come from the place where the roar lives, louder than last time because the crying opened something and the opening has not closed.

The pressure— the pressure is exactly what I need and I hear myself say this. Out loud. Breathless on the kitchen floor.

“Oh fuck, Priya. There.”

The word shocks me. Fuck. I do not say fuck. I have not said fuck in— I do not say fuck. I say the evidence suggests and I would argue and the passage clearly indicates. I do not say fuck on a kitchen floor. But the word came from the same place the roar came from, and so did the Priya that followed it—the name, tender inside the heat. Both are true and I am not taking either back.

She makes a noise, half moan, half breath. I feel her press harder.

“Say that again.” Barely whispered into my neck.

“What—”

“My name. Like that.”

I take a breath. “That wasn’t⁠—”

“I know you didn’t mean to. Margot.” Her mouth against my throat. “I want it again.”

I pull closer to her. The wanting in her voice brings the words to the surface again and I let them come⁠—

30

PRIYA

The bras are off and she pulls me against her and I stop thinking.

Her breasts against mine. The weight, the warmth, her nipples hard against my skin. Her hands on my waistband. Mine on hers. Pulling, kicking, my elbow on the cabinet. One shoe still on. I kick it free and it hits something. Nobody is in charge. We are just reaching.

Everything is off. We are on the floor.

Her thigh between my legs. Mine between hers. The first roll of hips, the friction building, and every time she shifts, the pressure sends heat straight up through my chest.