I get in the shower and watch the bloody, pink water circle the drain and then eventually wash away. I don't bleed anymore after that but I do ache, and I don't think it's just from it being my first time. I think I want more of him.
I climb into bed; my hair smelling fragrant in a way that it never did at home, and lie on my side to face the window. The trees are blurry as we pass them, we're speeding along to District 8 and we'll be there by morning.
More speeches. More unrest.
And I'll have to look Peeta in the eyes after what we just did.
I close my eyes and try not to think about it. It happened, it was painful, and my first time is over with. Sex can't always be that bad, though, right? I used to hear the older girls at school talking about it. Once I even overheard a girl named Fallon talk about what it was like to sleep with Gale.
Back then, I hadn't known what that meant and I can't remember specifically what she said, but the thought of sleeping with Gale makes my stomach churn.
Before doing it, I had known that part of me would break when Peeta went in. The teachers at school explained it like that, using more technical terms of course. But I hadn't known that it would hurt so bad. I thought it was supposed to feel good.
I close my eyes and will sleep to come, and it eventually does. I don't have nightmares that night. Instead all I dream about is Peeta, inside me.
No one speaks at breakfast. Haymitch is hungover and hasn't emerged from his room, Effie is convening with the prep teams in the next room; it's only Peeta and I sitting at the table. I'm picking at a muffin, just separating the crumbs and not eating at all. Peeta is cutting up bits of sausage and pushing them around, pretending to eat. Neither of us seem to have much of an appetite.
I can feel his eyes on me, but I don't return the gaze. The train is stopped at the station and we're just waiting for the go-ahead to appear in front of everyone. I've never wanted to do anything less. The dress they put me in this morning is intricate with high attention to detail, being that District 8 specializes in textiles. I think it was made here, in fact, Effie may have said something along those lines when she gave it to me earlier.
"Katniss, you look wonderful," she says, putting her hands on my shoulders. "Peeta, just dashing."
His collar is crisp and his shirt is firmly pressed, his pants too. He looks very sharp.
"People know that these aren't our words," I mutter, directed mostly down towards my plate. "They aren't stupid."
"What would you rather?" I hear Haymitch's voice come slurring through the automatic sliding door. "A little displeasure, or a lot of murder?" He hiccups and I narrow my eyes in his direction, though he doesn't see me. "Read from the cards or more people die. People may die anyway."
"What do you mean?" Peeta asks, and it's the first time I've heard him speak today.
"Doesn't concern either of you," Haymitch says, "I've just…been around before. Know how these things work."
"What things?" I press, but get no answer.
Suddenly, the doors leading outside whoosh open and two Peacekeepers stand there, wielding guns and standing with their legs shoulder-width apart.
"Looks like they're ready for us," Haymitch says scornfully.
"Well, that's not very accommodating," Effie says, her voice high and haughty as she leads the way past the Peacekeepers. "Children, follow me. I'll show you the way to the stage."
As we walk, Haymitch sloshes behind us. "You two better warm up for those cameras, and quick," he says. "Right now it doesn't look like you'd touch him with a 10-foot pole."
"I…" I begin, but find I don't have anything to say in response.
I extend my fingers between our hips and Peeta laces his own through them. We walk closer, and he ends up dropping my hand and wrapping his arm around the small of my back. The pads of his fingers dig into my opposite hip, keeping me close.
I can still clearly feel the throbbing ache between my legs from the night before. With his fingers so tight on me, though, the ache is a bit different now.
We go out there and speak like we're told to. Peeta reads his parts and I read mine, and he doesn't let go of me once. We kiss in front of the crowd, if only to keep the charade alive, and are met with everything but fruit thrown at us.
It feels like we're rubbing it in their faces.
Once we're behind closed doors again, Peeta's grip lingers on me for a second too long and I throw myself against his chest. I feel like crying, but no tears come. He pets the back of my head all the way to the ends of my hair, and I stay hidden against his chest until it's time for us to get back on the train.
A whole travel day passes where no one speaks to each other. I don't leave my room once; instead, I stay cooped up like an animal, rinsing out my underwear from a couple nights ago that had turned rust-colored from the blood I shed on them.
I wonder if I would bleed again if we tried a second time.
I sit by the window all day, and feel relieved when the sun goes down because I have an excuse to go to bed. I lie there in my impossibly soft nightgown and fold my fingers together on my ribcage, counting my even breaths in an attempt to lull myself to sleep. It doesn't work.
I glide my hands higher to cover my breasts, noticing the slight pricks of my nipples through the thin, sheer fabric. I can feel my heart start to thump a bit harder as I graze my thumbs over the buds, trying to make them feel like Peeta had. It doesn't feel the same, though. I don't trust my own hands like I trust his, and I don't know why that is.
The wringing washcloth feeling in my lower belly is back again. I bend my knees up towards the ceiling, separating them a little, and then lift my hips so I can pull my nightgown up above my waist. It rests in a bunch around my bellybutton, and with shaking hands I trace the waistband of my underwear, feeling the little pink bow that I find so unnecessary. Every pair of underwear I've gotten from these Capitol trips has a bow or some sort of lace decal. They're very different from the underwear I'm used to; thin and airy rather than durable with thick seams. At home we have no use for frilly, girly panties. I never thought I would have a use for these, either, I never thought another's eyes would ever see them, not until last night.
I dare myself to pull them down past my hips. Once they're there, I dare myself further until the little scrap of fabric is loose around my ankles. I cast them to the side with a scoff – they would never keep anyone warm during winter in the Seam. The Capitol doesn't know anything about creating quality materials. I guess they've never had to know.
Now my lower half is bare, the breeze from the fan in the corner is blowing gently onto my body and making both my hair and nightgown flutter gracefully.
I'm scared to touch myself, but I want to. I want to know what it really feels like, if I can make myself feel like it should've when Peeta was inside me, or test to see if I'll bleed again. I don't know what I'm doing. I've never done this before, but I've heard groups of girls talk about it in hushed tones in the bathroom at school.
I always thought those girls were petty and melodramatic. Now, I'm too curious to think those same thoughts. I'm not the same girl I was, I guess.
I take in a shaky breath and feel the downy, invisible peach fuzz under my bellybutton that leads lower and run the pads of my fingers over it until my whole body has goosebumps and my nipples perk up in reaction. I don't know what I'm doing with myself. I feel immature, ignorant, like I'm in foreign territory. No one has ever told me how to do this, or even what I should be feeling.
I know Peeta would. But I practically laugh at the thought of asking Peeta to teach me to masturbate.
Knowing him, though, he'd say yes. For completely unselfish reasons, because he'd really want to help me.
I slip one finger inside my body and am surprised by how warm it is. Almost hot. It doesn't feel like anything special. I dip another finger in to join, and try to reach them up higher, wondering if I'll know when to stop.
I hit something that makes my breath catch in my throat. I yank my fingers out immediately and squint at them, checking for blood, but I can't see anything in the low light. I flip on the lamp on my bedside table and sit up, examining them. I don't see any blood, but I definitely hit some sort of nerve. My fingers are shiny from being inside my body, so I wipe them hastily on the fluffy duvet below me and then crawl under it and give up my curious mission in exchange for sleep.
I'm woken up a few hours later by Peeta's loud, brash shouts. I shoot up from the bed immediately without thinking, clutching my thick blanket around my shoulders like some sort of cape, and quickly pad down the hall to his room. I find him thrashing around, screaming in his sleep, plagued by an apparently awful nightmare.
"Peeta, wake up," I say as gently as I can. "Peeta, it's me. Wake up, you're having a nightmare."
I lay my hand on his firm shoulder and he jolts, gasping harshly. His eyes snap open and he looks terrified until he realizes it's only me.
"You were screaming," I say, and look at the state of his bed. His covers are lying on the floor in a heap and his sheets are crumpled at the foot of the bed like he's been kicking and flailing for hours.
"I'm sorry," he says, completely out of breath. His face is flushed; I can tell that much from the dim moonlight shining in through the train window. "I didn't mean to wake you, I… I don't remember what I was doing, I don't even remember falling asleep." He rubs his eyes like a tired child, just like Prim used to do when she was very small and fighting sleep. I'd recognize the overtiredness anywhere.
"You need to sleep, Peeta," I tell him, bracing my palms flat on his bare bed. "Have you been sleeping lately?"
He shamefully shakes his head. I take in the sight of him; his wrinkled bedclothes, his slackened cheeks, the crinkles on his skin from he rested against his pillow. "When I sleep, that happens," he says.
"I'll stay with you," I offer quietly, testing the waters. "If you want me to." There's a charged silence between us. "I even brought my blanket," I say. He doesn't respond, so I keep talking. We've momentarily switched roles. "I want you to sleep, Peeta, you need your rest. You've helped me so much." I clear my throat. "Let me help you now."
He scoots over in the bed and makes room for me. I assume his role and cover us both with my warm blanket and take him in my arms, situating his body so his head rests on my breastbone and one of his arms is strewn over my belly, the heavy weight of it anchoring me to the bed. I couldn't leave even if I wanted to.
He nestles into me, hugging my middle closer, and I rest one of my cheeks against the top of his hair. From the Capitol shampoo, his hair smells like roses again. I wish it didn't.
Days pass. We speak in 7, 6, 5, and 4. It's the middle of the night on the way to 3 when I can't handle it anymore. I've been too scared to touch myself, and I want Peeta again. We've been sleeping in the same bed each night so neither of us have nightmares and can sleep until morning, and tonight I roll over towards the middle, covering the empty space where we don't touch.
I know he's not asleep yet, and I'm feeling especially brave because of how dark the room is. He won't be able to see the flighty look in my eyes or my hair sticking up every which way when it's over.
"Peeta?" I whisper, my voice cutting through the tepid air.
"Katniss," he mutters, sounding sleepy.
"Oh, were you asleep?"
He rolls onto his back, his arms extended above his head. I was wrong; I can see through the darkness just a bit, just enough to see that his curls are more wild than usual because of the increasing humidity in the air. "I'm not now," he says.
"Oh, never mind, then," I say, waving him off. "Go back to sleep."
"What?" he asks, "You can't do that and then not tell me."
I just sit there for a long while, my legs extended with my top half being held up by my left arm. Finally, I say, "I don't think I'd bleed again."
"What?" He sounds legitimately confused.
"If we tried again, you know," I say, "I don't think I'd bleed."
"Well, you're probably right," he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. "But you're still thinking about that?"
"You're not?" For some reason I feel brave. Something about this particular night has emboldened me.
"I never said that," he says, chuckling. "Did you know you would bleed?"
"I didn't know it would be that much," I admit. "I'm sorry I got it everywhere."
"They already changed my sheets. They probably thought I had a big bug bite or something."
"That's one big bug," I say under my breath, and we both giggle like children. "I tested to see if I'd bleed again and I didn't."
"You…tested?" he asks, sounding confused.
"Yeah, I…I put my fingers up there just to see," I say, "I hit something strange and I pulled them out, so I didn't really get an extensive idea, but I'm pretty sure."
"Katniss," he laughs and shakes his head, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
"What?" I ask indignantly, "Why are you laughing at me?"
"You're so pure," he insists.
"No, I'm not," I say.
"No need to get defensive," he says, leaning towards me. "I like it. I like that about you."
"You do?" I ask tentatively, and he nods.
"Were you going to ask if…" Now it seems like he's having a hard time saying it out loud just like I had.
"Can we try again?" I ask. I've never known myself to be quite so upfront. "Like I said, I'm not going to bleed again, and-"
"Your blood didn't bother me, Katniss," he says, "I don't know why you keep saying that. I wouldn't care if you bled every time."
He's talking like we're going to be doing this the rest of our lives. The thought of that almost knocks me flat; the thought of the rest of my life in general does that on its own.
"But I got it all over your bed," I say.
"I don't care," he says. "I just didn't like hurting you. I could tell it hurt you."
I inhale and nod.
"And you still want to try again?" he asks. "I have heard that it gets better. My brothers, they'd…" he trails off, shaking his head, "they would always talk about girls' first times and how they're really painful compared to boys'. They said that it got better, you know, as you went."
"Do you trust them?" I ask.
"No," he answers immediately, "but that's one of their areas of expertise. One of the few."
"Well, I want to," I assure him, and pull off my nightgown. I drape it over his headboard and sit there before him with nothing but those thin, nylon underwear on. Not even a bra.
He makes a low, guttural sound in the back of his throat. I'm surprised holes don't burn through my chest with how intensely he's staring at me with those blue eyes of his.
"Touch me like you did," I tell him, and then lay down on my back.
He takes off his shirt and finds his way over to me, lifting his good leg over my hips to straddle me, then anchors his hands on either side of my head.
"I thought you'd never want to do it again," he says, his voice sounding a bit wistful. I will him not to get sentimental. I convince myself that I want him for physical reasons only.
"For once, you were wrong," I say, and loop my arms around his neck to direct his head down towards my chest. He follows my cue and closes his lips around one of my nipples, which makes a tiny whimper come from me. He spends much more time there than he did last time, squeezing the supple flesh in his callused hand and running his thumb roughly over the center until it hardens to the point of extreme discomfort. Once he does that, he takes his mouth from the breast he'd been on to shift to the other, calming the nipple with his tongue.
I can't hold back my moans. Last time, I had worried who might hear. Now, that's the last thing on my mind.
He moves his lips and tongue from my breast and kisses a path down the middle of them, all the way down to my bellybutton. I bend my neck at an uncomfortable angle to watch him, and see him smiling against my soft skin. I sit up higher, propping myself up with my elbows, but he lifts an arm to push me back down by one shoulder.
"Just trust me," he says, his voice husky. "Do you?"
I nod shakily and stare up at the ceiling.
I feel him tug my underwear down slowly, bringing chills down my legs with every passing inch he pulls them. Soon, I'm laid completely bare before him and I've never felt so naked.
He pushes my inner thighs apart with some coaxing – my muscles are very tense – until his head can fit between them. I can't resist now, I have to look and see. "What are you doing?" I ask, my voice on edge.
He pushes my shoulder again, taking control of the situation. I'm not used to that. "You said you trusted me," he reminds me. "I'm going to show you how it's supposed to feel. How it's going to feel someday when we do it the other way. But this way is all for you."
"What?" I ask, all the more confused.
My confusion is replaced with sensory overload when his lips connect with the most intimate part of me. My body goes rigid, and my knees bend upwards, involuntarily clenching his head between my thighs. I feel him smile against me. That is a place where I never imagined feeling Peeta Mellark's smile.
He wraps his arms around either of my legs to hold me down, to make me stop squirming like I had started to. My skin has indents where his fingers hold me, leaving little white imprints behind.
He opens his mouth and presses his tongue against me, and fireworks go off behind my eyelids. I resist the urge to scream at the top of my lungs. I never imagined that my body could feel like this. How come no one told me about this? How had I never known that this was possible?
I'm now finding it impossible to think about anything else except for Peeta's head between my thighs.
He pushes his tongue inside me. I've lost control of my senses at this point, my body is somehow slack and yet coursing with energy at the same time. I hold generous fistfuls of his blonde curls in my hands so I have something holding me to earth. I think without it; I might accidentally float away.
It feels like he stays down there for hours. I never want this to end.
After a while, he finds the same place that my fingers had, but stays there longer. It makes electricity buzz through my entire being.
"That!" I accidentally shriek, panting by now. "That was what…" I can't finish my sentence. I find that I don't need to.
He returns to it, pressing his tongue against it and then sucking it into his mouth, and I feel like I've exited my body permanently. The tensed washcloth in my lower belly has been shaken out, because it feels like every nerve ending inside me is firing at the same time. I scream Peeta's name as my back arches from the mattress, and he stays connected with me as I come for the very first time in my entire life.
When it ends, I realize how sweaty I am. My entire body is sticky with perspiration, and I've never felt so out of breath.
"I…" I stammer, and then realize that I've started to cry. I don't know why I'm crying, but I am, so I cover my face with my hands and hate myself as the tears flow faster.
"What did I do?" Peeta asks, pulling himself up and kissing his way up my body. First on my thigh, then hipbone, then the soft part of my belly.
"I don't know," I say, catching my breath, "I don't know why I'm crying. I just need a minute."
When the tears clear up, Peeta wipes the residue from my face with the pads of his thumbs, then kisses my cheeks. My skin flames following his touch.
I look at him with glassy eyes; hovering above me and waiting for me to say something. I can hardly find the words to say, though. How could I put together something that would do what I felt justice? I could never. Peeta is the wordsmith, not me.
"Will you come here?" I ask, mirroring his words from when we were back in the cave together.
He lays beside me and wraps my body up in his arms; my very naked body. He's only in his underwear, but I have absolutely nothing on. Our bare chests are pressed tight against one another, also something I never thought I would be able to say about Peeta Mellark.
He smells wonderful; like cinnamon, flour, dill and sweat. The Capitol scent is gone. At least for now, he's worked it off.
I get cold fast, so I pull my nightgown from the headboard and slip it back on. I return to Peeta's arms before he can say anything in protest.
"I don't know what you did," I whisper once I get comfortable again, trailing my pointer finger amidst the hair on his chest, "but I've never felt something like that before. I didn't know that I could. How did you…how did you know how to do that?"
Images of Peeta with other girls rush through my mind. I do a bad job at convincing myself that I don't care.
"My brothers talk a lot about sex," he admits, "they have for as long as I can remember. That's where I learned…" he clears his throat. "How to do that."
"I don't know what else to say but thank you," I say, although it feels wrong and too formal. He's just given me something no one ever has before, and that's all I have to say?
"Katniss?" he asks, his fingers dancing over my ribcage and daring to trace the curved underside of my breast.
"Hmm?" I say, blinking my eyes slowly open. I had just begun to fall asleep.
Then he doesn't speak. He shifts his body, though, so he's more on me than not, and starts kissing me like I know what I'm doing. I smile against his lips, wind my fingers through his hair, and try my best to find a rhythm. We eventually do.
Peeta peppers his lips along my breastbone, pausing to dart his tongue out over my pulse point, and I smile into his hair. He moves the capped sleeve of my nightgown over to press open-mouthed kisses against the slopes of my shoulder, and I wrap one leg around him and hold tight.
"I love you," he says, and my heart stops cold. His lips don't part from my skin.
I can't respond. I think I start to sweat, and I know he must feel my heart racing.
He lifts his head up from my chest and looks me dead in the eyes. His gaze is sure and steady, compared to mine which is probably flitting all over the room.
"I just needed to say that. I needed to tell you. When there weren't any cameras, nobody else. Just me and you."
I swallow hard. I never thought I would be put in this situation.
Peeta knows I'm not good with words. How can he just drop this and expect me to know how to react? I feel an angry blush rising up my neck to spread out over my face, and I'm glad the room is mostly dark so he can't see it.
He can read me much too well.
I don't know how long I'm silent, but he doesn't kiss me again. He pulls me into his arms again, though, and I let him. I want his company, being near him is essential, so I don't know why he would ruin it by saying such a thing as he just did.
"You're not obligated to love me back," he finally says quietly, running his fingers gently through my tousled hair. His words surprise me; I start to chew on my lower lip out of anxiousness. "We can keep sleeping together, doing this, and you don't have to love me, and it can all be fake. Or you don't ever have to sleep with me again if you don't want to. I just…" he lets out a long sigh. "I just had to say it."
I wish he hadn't.
