Note: This piece is best read while listening to "Falling is Like This " from Ani DiFranco's 1994 album Out of Range.
Piper Chapman is the world champion of eyefucking. Peel away a few layers of prim and proper and those eyes come to life, making Alex want to keep her coming and coming- seven times once. Eight. Fourteen. Twenty three and one to grow on for her birthday that year.
It scares her how hard that look hits her, every time. Every time, she's falling and flailing and needs to anchor herself with two fingers deep inside the blonde just to hold it all together.
She always thinks it will be better when she's fucked Piper somnolent and those eyes are closed.
It's not.
She avoids looking in the mirror as she brushes her teeth these days, unable to bear seeing feelings that someone in her line of work simply cannot afford.
A typhoon hit Bali two days after they arrived. It was actually a shitty time of year to visit, but business called and there they were.
The power went out in their luxury apartment and in the dark Piper came face to face with where she was. What she was doing half way around the world living on drug money? And for what, great sex?
But Alex was starting to get good at distracting Piper from the routine dangers of their life together. A few deft touches and an "I can get you wetter than any storm" and the weather is forgotten.
They're the real force of nature. Primal. Unstoppable. Beautiful.
Incredibly destructive.
They're crazy about each other, in the fullest sense.
Piper's living a life she can't fathom, participating in things she can't really live with. She doesn't kid herself that she's not contributing to addiction, overdose, death.
She's not even Catholic, but damn if it doesn't feel like confession and absolution, giving herself over the ritual of kneeling, Alex's taste on her tongue like her own personal Eucharist.
She's never felt so alive.
The manipulations have become second nature. Alex doesn't ask how she can do this to someone she loves. She just knows she has to, that losing Piper would break her for good.
Best not to dwell on that. Better to marvel at feeling Piper's heartbeat in her clit. Grin at the squeal she makes when Alex's thumb brushes her asshole. Shudder at her wanton begging Alex to "Please fuck me make me come I am yours forever."
They both know it's not enough.
They are so bad for each other. They are so good for each other. It's mutually assured destruction. It's what there is.
Under fluorescent lights with her public defender, because you can't hire a lawyer with your drug money, it's Piper Alex sees when they ask for accomplices.
Piper as Laura Ingalls Wilder with a faked resume. Piper as respectable blonde lady skipping customs entirely in Belgium. Piper's taste. Piper's smell. Piper's symphony of pleasure sounds.
Piper grabbing her suitcase and walking out on her in Paris. It's been years, but it's still crisp. Raw. Piper, who's never been anything but clumsy at anything but fucking, executing a perfect Hollywood exit.
Alex shatters all over again. The emptiness, the low white-noise buzz that has been biding its time in her chest comes into her head too. She is never completely sure afterwards what comes spilling out of her mouth.
Except "Piper Chapman." That name she's sure of.
She's caught, and she's destroyed, and revenge will have to be enough. She tells herself it makes her feel better.
It doesn't. It's what there is.