Rachel is deeply unused to anyone looking at her with anything approaching adoration. She doesn't like it.
"Close your eyes," she breathes into the skin of Delphine's shoulder. Delphine is pliant beneath her. Delphine is compliant beneath her. Her eyelids flutter shut, fingers finding more purchase on the bedsheets. She is not yet good, but she is learning. Do not touch Rachel without permission. Her grip on the sheets has her knuckles white.
She thinks they do this because it is dangerous. Rachel likes to toy with being wanted. Delphine likes to pretend there is anything left to want. Her skin is slick and flushed under Rachel's hands, endless information about synapses and capillary constriction writ in biological codes neither can quite read. Do not wish to read. There had been a translator, before.
It is easy to bring her close. Rachel is not prone to introspection, but in bed, with Delphine, it is easy to believe she was made for this.
Delphine comes as if the orgasm is dragged out of her against her will, shaking. It would be fascinating to watch, were it not for the trickle of words dripping poison out of her mouth, "Cosima, Cosima, Cosima."