Cheers for all the lovely reviews guys :). Sorry this has taken so long but I kept on having problems with the structure. In the end I just went with my original thought of screwing linear so you are getting flashbacks. Also a few of my laptop keys have been sticking but I did try to fix all the mistakes these may have made. So yeah, please review and let me know what you think.
It was not something Michelle had ever planed to let happen. Hell, she had not ever let herself envisioned the possibility of it. And yet here she was, sweat slowly drying and sending a chill through her naked flesh. Even as she replayed the events of the evening she still did not comprehend how any of it had happened.
She laid awake, limbs pleasantly heavy with her fading high as her heart slowed into a regular rhythm, she still expected Carla to disappear again. It was not logical. It was not as if Carla was about to get up and leave without saying a word when it was her own flat and it was not as if the other woman was about to disappear into thin air. But still after living so long without her Michelle could not help but steel herself against being left alone once more.
She had already lost far more precious people than she thought she could live through. As she watched her friend sleep she considered that they both had.
After all the years they had spent together Michelle had at least expected some emotionally distancing sarcasm. It was true that Carla had seemed to take deliberate care not to reveal much besides the practical reasons for her vanishing but through the act of sex it was as if she had shared something perhaps even deeper, perhaps a lie. So it had been a pleasant surprise that once they had finished Carla had squeezed her fingers affectionately before falling into a light sleep.
Maybe she was being naïve and the sex had been as tactical move as any she had ever accused he sister in law of making in the past but the tiny gesture had felt as honest as it had seemed chaste. It was almost as if Carla seemed content and that was not an aura she could remember seeing around the other woman for the longest time.
She had slept with the woman she had grudgingly called a sister and had grown to be grateful to call her best friend. The problem was not even that besides a few silly fantasies she considered herself strictly heterosexual but that she had never thought of this woman in that way and still couldn't begin to understand the implications of what they had done.
She just hoped that after everything she had not managed to become something else for Carla to run away from. But to have her back, to find her safe and looking fantastic had almost been too good to be true. To be able share such a level of physical intimacy, to touch and taste and confirm that fact with her body was beyond unbelievable.
Only the way her thighs were starting to ache already from straining towards deepening the other woman's touch and the way there already was a shadow of a bruise forming on the hollow of Carla's collar bone grounded them in reality. The mere knowledge of the bruises existence made Michelle smirk, to know that she had marked her lover; that maybe now she was literally under her friend's skin and she would not be able to forget her so easily this time. A small part of her delighted in being the dominate woman even if it had just been for a few passing moments. It wasn't fair that Carla got to call all of the shots all of the time. It wasn't fair that someone with such a large and infuriating presence selfishly thought she could just walk in and out of the lives of people who cared about her.
But for all the unanswered questions the act created Michelle could not bring her self to regret the sex, not yet anyway.
So while the other woman dozed Michelle's mind was too wild to let her rest. At first, once the astonishment had broken and she felt able to move again Michelle had to bite down into her lower lip to resist the childish urge to poke Carla until she woke up enough to hold a conversation. Then she had decided that for now, listening to the slow even pace of the sleeping woman's breathing was the perfect come down.
After everything that they had done together, to each other somehow it was the most innocent actions that seemed the naughtiest. If there was one thing Michelle had always been painfully aware off it was that Carla almost never let her guard down. Even eight months ago when they had been at their closest her friend had only relied on her support when it seemed as if there was no other way out.
While Carla had been on top of her, waves of dark hair falling like a veil and hiding her expression she had been almost untouchable for all the power she had to reduce Michelle to a shuddering mess. But sleeping and still, curled on her side it was one of the few times Carla had truly allowed herself to be vulnerable.
Pulling the sheet over stimulated, cold body before shivers could set in, no matter how much time Michelle took to take in the physicality of the situation the emotional side did not grow any clearer. How they had gone from meeting up for the first time in over half a year to falling into bed together.
Maybe it had been the alcohol although Michelle was only partly in denial about how her dependency on booze had increased over recent months. It seemed easiest way to distress after a tough day at work was to have a glass or two of wine when she no longer had anyone to talk too. It had thrown her how she had unconsciously taken on Carla's unhealthy habit as well as her business. It was even more uncomfortable when Carla seemed to have turned into a bit of a light weight when only a few months ago she had been borderline alcoholic.
Perhaps Michelle had taken advantage of her friend's drunken state. Perhaps Carla would wake up and feel violated and used all over again but Michelle convinced herself they had shared a mutual loss of control.
All she had wanted was to understand and make Carla understand how she had felt being left behind to worry and cope. Ideally she had dreamed of taking her back home ready to retake her thrown as queen of the local knicker empire and they could put all the pain of the last few years behind them. Even if life had taught her that it rarely lived up to the promise of ideals.
Know she worried if her actions would simply confuse mattes further and make Carla run so far away she wouldn't be able to track her down again.
It had been Carla that had kissed her first. They both knew it was inevitable once they had finally left the wine bar. But it had been as if Carla had to stay in control by being the dominate partner. But it had been Michelle who had made the first move by suggesting they share a taxi and that they retuned to Carla's rented flat rather than the faceless hotel room she had dumped her stuff inside.
She had been bold and affectionate and held Carla's waist tightly, pretending to be unsteady on her new heels. She had leaned a little too close when she had bushed the thick waves of hair away from those brilliant cheek bones and smiled against the other woman's full lips when Carla had backed her against the nearest convenient wall. In the end they almost did not make it to the bed.
In her moment of quiet contemplation Michelle couldn't help but be astounded by the beautiful woman who she shared a bed with; the fine network of blue veins under soft lightly tanned skin, the sharpness of her vertebra against the narrowness of her back. She was struck by just how fragile Carla seemed and how it made her strength all the more amazing.
Thee were a neat little row of words tattooed on Carla's side, following the path of a rib and ending just below the swell of a breast. The looping, strange handwriting was a surprise to Michelle. She wondered if it belonged to someone significant but did not recognise it as anyone from her own family. It was certainly too patient and practiced to be Carla's own witting. The position of the tattoo meant that it would sit discreetly under the line of a bra. Michelle was certain the body art was a recent addition even if she had not seen her friend naked while changing in the past. She had barely been able to stop herself pulling away as if burnt when she had peeled off the last pieces of Carla's clothing and come across the mysterious words.
'Destroy everything you love before everything you love destroys you'
She wonders if those words were meant for her to find or if they were a physical scar and reminder of what they had both shared and lost. She hoped there was not more heartache that Carla still had not confided with her but she could not be confident in that belief.
Michelle traced a gentle finger over the words as if she could read their secrets through touch telepathy. She found herself hating that someone she loved could be driven to put something so fierce beneath their skin. Her heart breaks a little for a woman who would never see her sympathy as anything other than pity. But a little part of her likes the mystery. She likes that it's her secret now too, even if she doesn't quiet understand the weight of its meaning yet she silently vows to find out.
Carla stirs in her sleep clearly irritated by Michelle's touch and mutters something unintelligible. Michelle only pulls her closer, pressing a light kiss to the base of her neck as she pulls the covers further over both their chilled bodies.
In the morning it might all be over but neither woman had been one to give up easily.