A Gentleman's Dilemma
Chapter Three (of four) - Caving
Notes: In this chapter I'm using hir/ze as gender-neutral pronouns in Maura's section.
You are horrible and uncultured (or at least not American) if you have not read one of my favorite children's books of all time. Make Way for Ducklings has deep significance for the city of Boston as it is the setting of this timeless children's story. The scene that Maura mentions is in one of the illustrations posted on that link.
Copious amounts of Blink-182 were listened to while writing this story. (DO NOT JUDGE ME, I'M ON A NOSTALGIA KICK BECAUSE OF NICK DOING THEIR 90s ARE ALL THAT SHIT. CLARISSAAAAA I LOVE YOU.)
Warnings for a lot of gender dysphoria.
They're standing over a dead body, alone in the room (Korsak is interviewing a neighbor and Crowe and his partner are off canvasing) when Jay says something that throws a new monkey wrench into the mental picture that Maura Isles had of him. "Sometimes, I wonder if the reason I'm like this – that I can't help myself – is because I don't even want to be a guy," Jay sighs, shifting him – her - "You'll have to clarify that, I don't follow." Maura makes a note on her clipboard and turns to inspect the wounds that Jay has since moved on from. They're deep, not necessarily killing blows. She'll have to look under a microscope to see if they transected any major veins that would contribute to the pool of blood they're kneeling in. Maura's glad that she wore pants today – even though she's got her waders on over them. Waders are awkward in a dress. Jay throws hir hands up in the air and rolls hir eyes at Maura. "I'm perfectly fine being a girl, some of the time. I don't like the dresses and the shoes at all, but I don't mind having good hair or taking care of myself." Jay sighs. "Hell, I don't even mind being Jane for you. Also, if I were a guy and did half the shit I do, I'd be fucking gay as hell." "So the moments of weakness?" Maura purses her lips and frowns. She doesn't understand Jay. Doesn't understand what ze wants from her. Does Jay want validation to even be Jay instead of Jane? Does Jay even know what ze wants? This whole situation is rather confusing. "I don't know what the fuck they are." Jay stares at hir hands, contemplating them for a moment before beginning to pat down their victim for a wallet and ID. Maura can tell that there isn't one in the man's pockets, but she knows that it does give Jay something to do, keeps hir talking. Talking is good and important. "I never feel compelled to have sex with men or women when I am being perceived as female." "When you're not?" Jay swallows. "I want women." "So you're heterosexual." Maura takes a measurement and writes it down, her tone even as though she's commenting on the weather. "I have fucking tits Maura." Jay looks very much like Jane at that moment. Maura swallows, Jane is as beautiful as Jay is handsome, there's only so much resistance she can put up. Jay – Jane – is the most intriguing individual that Maura has ever encountered in her life. She can't even begin to put into words how powerful the draw to this individual is for her. She can't resist. Jay can take and take and Maura will come back for more every time. Maura sighs and sits back, blood soaked carpet squishing as she moves. She wrinkles her nose and Jay grins at her before shifting hir own weight so that ze too, was making the gross squishing noise. This is a strange sort of flirting, Maura thinks, but does not voice her opinion, instead choosing to respond to Jay's colloquially (and crudely) put comment about hir breasts. "But you do not Jay's face pitches downward into a frown. "Shit's fucked up, huh?" "I would not phrase it like that, no." Maura bites her lip. She doesn't mind it when Jay swears, not that much anyway. She's not going to tell hir to not do it, as it is an intrinsic part of who Jay is. It would be pointless and Maura Isles does not waste words. "You know what I mean." Maura sets her clipboard down on the floor away from the blood coated carpet. She stands and tries not to look down at the knees on her waders, knowing without looking that there is fluid, potentially blood mixed with water, their victim did bleed out here and they've already confirmed that the puddle is indeed blood. It's slightly grotesque and distracting, but Maura manages to keep a straight face and meet Jay's gaze evenly. "Jay, you're you. No one else can tell you who you are." Maura certainly isn't about to try. "If I asked you, would you?" Jay's voice is almost begging. Ze wants Maura to put hir into a box, but Maura won't do it until she's sure. If she does it at all. "No, I don't think I would."
x
Jane takes Maura out sometimes – to the Robber (although that's usually with Korsak and some of the other guys from homicide) – and to other places. One day they go down to the river and ride the duck boats that she loved so much when she was a child. She can tell by the way that Maura is sitting primly on the edge of her seat paying rapt attention to the guide that she's never done this before.
"You did grow up in Boston, right?" Jane asks, leaning back and pulling Maura into a more relaxed position. The child next to them squirms and his mother shushes him. She knows Maura comes from here, even with her ivy-league way of speaking. She's seen how Maura will steal the sports pages or tune into the radio to check the Sox score, how she rolls her 'r's when she thinks Jane isn't paying attention.
Jane is always paying attention.
Maura gives a little nod, "This is rather pedestrian for my parents, however."
They've never talked about her parents before. Jane has told Maura all about her troubles with her mother (Maura's even met her once in passing) in order to avoid talking about other things, but Maura has never once mentioned her parents. Jane just assumed that they had a shit relationship or something. She knows that Maura's a trust-fund kid, that she's working not because she has to, but because she wants to, and Jane respects that but privately she wonders if her parents think she's an idiot or something cutting up dead people for the city for forty k a year. Maura is married to the job, just like she is. Jane likes that, it makes sense and Maura's as good as they come.
"Come on, they didn't take you down to the duck boats even once?" Jane shakes her head, grinning ruefully at Maura, who is shaking her head to the negative. "Did they even read you Make Way for Ducklings?"
"Of course, as is a classic and won several awards, it was deemed appropriate." Maura sniffed and Jane wants to tease her for looking very much the uptown girl that they both know she is. "I was rather partial to the scene where they cross the road and the policeman stops traffic for them."
Jane laughs.
"I was four!"
The four year old next to Jane kicks her shin and Jane glares at him. Brat.
Maura smiles politely at the mother who is looking to apologize for her child's lamentable behavior and Jane is chewing on the inside of her lip, trying not to ask Maura any questions that might make her uncomfortable. There's a certain give and take in their relationship, Maura pushes, Jane runs the fuck away, but always comes back. If Jane pushes, she doesn't know what Maura will do.
"Did you watch Sesame Street? Play NES? Read the Babysitter's Club?" These were all things that Jane had done and had loved as a kid, even the lame-ass girly fucking books that she still had hidden deep within the recesses of her closet. Right next to her boy jeans and the lockbox, coincidentally. The irony is not lost on Jane.
"I did play some NES, but only at other children's houses, I was always very good at Mario." They're heading off the boat now, and Jane pulls Maura towards a hotdog vender. Maura's nose wrinkles in distaste and Jane grins. She's going to love it, even if the cooking conditions are less than favorable for the delicate palate of Doctor Maura Isles. "I wasn't allowed to watch television until I went to boarding school."
Boarding school… Jane shakes her head. She went to Catholic school just because everyone in the goddamn neighborhood went to St. Bridget's. It was just sort of the thing to do. Sure it cost her parents money, but not as much as fucking boarding school.
There have been times when Jane has wondered what Maura is doing, slumming with a blue-collar character like herself. She knows that the sex is good, but Jane is also chalk-full of fucking complicated as hell issues and there's only so much enjoyment that Maura can derive from it.
Maybe they should stop seeing each other.
Maura's fingers close around her own and there's a worried look in her eyes. Jane has been told her face is telling, she thinks this is one of those sorts of moments.
"I wish I could give you more," Jane says, handing over a ten for their hot dogs and taking the change and stuffing it into her jeans. "I mean, I'm pretty fucked up, huh?"
Worried hazel eyes meet her own and Jane sighs, but Maura begins to talk, carefully unwrapping her hotdog and sniffing it before taking a hesitant bite. She smiles easily when she finds it to her liking and Jane is full of smug satisfaction knowing that that she was, once again, right. "I find being with you far more fulfilling than anyone else I've been with in a long time. You give me more than what adequately meets my needs."
Jane contemplates her hot dog for a moment, before getting up from the bench they've settled down on and crossing the walkway back towards the vendor. She grabs an extra packet of mustard and a few more napkins before heading back to Maura. "I can't let you touch me," Jane's voice is low, dangerous. They're treading on thin ice here and she's afraid that one wrong word is going to break the spell that she's so carefully created with such a nice day so far.
"You're getting better," Maura isn't lying either. She's touched Jane in places that no one has touched in years, but Jane is still uncomfortable with the idea of being so vulnerable and open to Maura completely. She knows that she should be, that it's normal and not fucked up, but to break through the place her brain goes when she has her cock on is very terrifying and Jane wants absolutely nothing to do with it.
Jane squirts mustard out of the packet before flicking the empty wrapper into the trashcan a few feet away. She grins brightly at her food and begins to eat, staring off into space. "I guess it is just this weird loop I've gotten into in my head." She doesn't want to talk about this anymore. Maura is dangerously close to making Jane admit to things that she's barely even thought of enough to know if that's really how she feels. "I just worry that the whole thing will collapse if I try it."
"Then let me try it with you?" Maura has finished her hotdog and is crumpling up the aluminum foil wrapping and brushing off her skirt. "I have been told that I'm very good in bed."
Beat.
Swallowing her food so that she doesn't choke laughing at Maura's adorable sincerity, Jane wraps her arm around Maura. "You are quite good in bed," she whispers in Maura's ear, voice low and full of promise. It's easy to pretend with Maura, even when her cock isn't there. It's easy to flirt and to have innuendo and it's getting easier to kiss Maura when they're out and not around anyone they know.
Maybe Jane doesn't have to be a man to fully enjoy this beautiful woman. She isn't sure she can go through with it, but the way that there is such earnestness and caring in Maura's smile makes Jane know that if she does, that it will be alright.
"Then let me show you how it feels."
x
Jane is at home, running through her case files over a beer, when Maura shows up wearing a raincoat and scant little else – not that Jane is looking. Jane is a little taken aback, full of awkward teenage energy that causes her limbs to fly out every-which-way, all elbows and knees and jesus fuck she's too tall for a girl and not tall enough for a guy.
This is every teenage boy's fantasy. It's probably her fucking kid brother's fantasy.
Carpe Diem, as they say.
"Should I?" It's really not a question, at least in Jane's mind it isn't. She sets her beer down on the counter, closing the case files and shoving them back into the leather briefcase that her father bought her upon passing her detective's exam. She's already moving towards the bedroom, towards her closet and the safety of her cock, but Maura hasn't answered her and her silence makes Jane pause at the doorway to her bedroom, staring as Maura takes off the rain jacket.
Underneath the raincoat there is underwear. Sexy underwear, Jane would even go so far as to say that it's lingerie. Obviously it is from a very high-end store because Jane can't look away and wants nothing more than to see it on the floor, where all hot ass clothing should be. She swallows, still paused in the doorway as Maura moves towards her. She's taken off her shoes, her height falling to be more acceptable to Jane's mental picture of her. She's a few inches shorter without her heels, and Jane likes that, likes that she's naturally taller and loves that they can both be barefoot around each other.
She does like it when Maura leaves her shoes on though.
Maura Isles is in love with sexy shoes and Jane thinks that she might be in love with Maura Isles.
"Come with me," Maura brushes past Jane, taking her hand and pulling her into the bedroom. Jane follows, wordlessly. Her eyes keep turning, panicked, towards the closet where the lockbox is – where her safety net is.
And then Maura's on her tip-toes and is kissing her, pressing her scantily clad body up against Jane and wrapping her arms around Jane's bent neck. Jane growls into the kiss, fingers already toying with the hem of whatever the fuck it is that Maura is wearing. She wants it off, wants to touch Maura, wants to make her come.
"Where is it?" Maura asks, pulling away a few seconds later with her lips swollen from Jane's aggressive kissing.
Jane wordlessly points to the closet. "In the lockbox," she says, almost collapsing onto the bed. She's afraid of what Maura is going to do, afraid that Maura might not let her put it on. She's (reluctantly – very reluctantly) agreed to let Maura try and touch her – to see if she can even have a reaction to it, but Jane is fucking terrified. She has to have her cock, it isn't about self-expression or comfort, Jane simply must have it or else this is going to go downhill very quickly. "Closet."
"The irony of that statement is rather humorous, especially if one considers that colloquially and for the sake of outward appearance, we appear to be homosexual and are certainly not in the open about our relationship…" Maura finds the lockbox and Jane whispers prayers to God or anyone else who happens to be listening that she's finally shut up. When Maura babbles she often says things without thinking, and they make Jane uncomfortable. Like the idea of appearing to be a lesbian. She gets that enough at work to know that it really isn't her speed.
Still, for Maura she might consider it.
"Put it on," Maura says and Jane falters.
"I thought the point was that we didn't use it," She knows it isn't the right thing to say, but she knows that Maura likes it when she's honest.
Maura shrugs. The strap of the lacy bit of fabric that she's wearing to keep herself (mostly – okay, not at all) falls off her shoulder and she suddenly looks so much younger than just barely thirty one and Jane swallows. She's beautiful. "I think you should wear it, we'll figure it out."
"That sounds…"
"Rather scientific, I know." Maura turns as Jane pulls off her work pants and fishes in her dresser for boxers. She pulls on her cock and tucks it down, tugging on the boxers on top of it in record time. She's usually more ritualistic about her cock, but Maura's right fucking there and Jane is fucking turned on. "I have a hypothesis."
She's afraid.
They call Maura 'Doctor Death' behind her back at work for a reason. Maura Isles is fucking terrifying.
Maura pulls her over to the bed and sits her down. Jane is motionless as Maura undoes the buttons on her work shirt. She's freaked out, it doesn't feel right, she doesn't want Maura to touch her. She reaches out, hand shaking a little as she touches Maura's wrist.
"I don't know if I can do this," she's a fucking pussy and should just let Maura touch her. A beautiful woman wants to touch her, Jane Rizzoli is a fucking pussy for wanting to run the fuck away.
Maura's smile is soft, kind, if still possessing that quirky academic look that she can never quite shake. Jane is rather fond of that look, she catches Maura looking at her like that sometimes, before Maura goes back to whatever thick book on gender theory she's perusing at the moment. Jane has flipped through a few of them, but she hates boxes and doesn't want to be put into one.
"Do you want me to talk to you?"
It is an odd question, and Jane uses the moment that she ponders it to calm down a bit. She's so close to running, but she so desperately wants to share this with Maura. Eventually she nods and Maura pushes her backwards onto the bed.
It's a little silly at first, Maura struggles to find the right things to say, and they're both giggling before long.
"I'm going to take your shirt off, alright Jay?" Maura says eventually. They've been kissing and laughing for a few minutes and Jane is a lot more comfortable as Maura's fingers nimbly finish unbuttoning her shirt. She urges Jane to sit up and pushes the shirt off of Jane's shoulders, tugging at the tank top Jane has on under it. Soon that is gone too and Maura's fingers rest on the bare skin of Jane's shoulders for a moment, hot and full of the tension in the room.
She kisses Jane then, pushing her tongue into Jane's mouth. Jane can taste the desperation there, and she clings to Maura as her fingers tangle in Maura's hair. Maura is undoing her bra, and then it's off, gone, one of her shields is completely gone.
She exhales, unsteady as Maura begins to kiss along her shoulder, traveling down her collar bone – clavicle (she's sure Maura will correct her). Maura lingers there, kissing her long and hard enough to leave a mark and Jane is strangely okay with that. Maura is the first to broach this territory since Jane was a teenager; it needs a badge of honor to prove that she's been there.
There's something about the way that Maura's kissing her chest that is very similar to how, in her limited experience, one would kiss a man's chest. Maura isn't spending too much time there, kissing her breasts, staying away from the nipples and then moving down to her stomach. She lingers there, fingers splayed across Jane's abdomen, feeling the muscles that Jane has cultivated there.
Fuck it's turning her on. Jane shifts, pushing up into Maura's touch.
"I'm going to try something," Maura's tone low and husky and Jane wants her to suck her fucking cock and not dick around anymore. "I'm going to touch you."
Jane growls. That isn't what she wants. She rolls her hips forward to drive her point home.
"I am also going to stimulate you orally."
Jesus fucking Christ she has got to gag Maura during sex.
"Whatever you do, just don't talk. You're doing the unsexy thing again," Jane trails her fingers down Maura's cheek, watching as Maura leans into the touch with awe. What the hell did she do to deserve such a wonderful woman?
Maura's fingers close around her cock, pulling it out, feeling it (getting it pushed back into the position that Jane can fuck with), and Jane moans. The sight alone drives her insane, it's always done that. Maura pauses, her fingers pressed against Jane's harness-covered sex. The contact is strange, unreal, it feels almost good – if fucking weird as hell.
She could get used to it.
Those pretty lips close around the tip of her cock and Jane's eyes flutter close. She pushes her hips upwards, but there's surprisingly strong fingers pressing against her, not letting her move forward. Jane can't help it, she moans a little.
And then there is another sensation, gentle and hesitant. She can see Maura sucking her, but there's pressure building between her legs, Maura is coaxing it out of her with gentle caresses and clever touches. The sensation is so arousing that Jane can barely contain herself. Her fingers tangle in Maura's hair and she begins to mumble her encouragement in response to Maura's touches.
"That's it baby," she mutters, not really paying attention to what she's saying. "Look at those pretty lips on my cock, god you're so fucking hot."
It feels so strange, to be so turned on around someone else. She wants to get off, she wants Maura to be the one to do it. She swallows whatever waves of uncomfortable feelings that come as Maura begins to circle her, drawing the orgasm closer and closer with each small and tight gesture.
"Jesus Maura…" Jane whispers, breathless. She hadn't expected this. Hadn't expected it to feel quite so goddamn intense. She's so fucking close, she's going to come and she's worried that she's not going to be able to suppress bucking her hips any more.
Maura does something with her tongue on her cock, the imagery is all Jane needs to be sent over the edge. She's coming hard, biting back a long and drawn out moan as she tries to hold herself still. She's bucking into Maura' into her hand now, her mouth is gone.
It takes a few minutes for Jane to come back to reality, but she can definitely say that she's okay with that, if it were to happen again.
"Was that alright?" Maura asks, crawling up to curl around Jane and nestle her head in the crook of Jane's neck.
Jane turns and kisses her forehead. "It was … intense, Maur."
"Jay, you are allowed to feel pleasure in our sexual encounters," Maura's tone is matter of fact and Jane bites down the urge to tell her, for the millionth time, that her name is fucking Jane and Jay was a fucking fake name she gave Maura in order to pick her up in a fucking queer bar. She likes Jay though, but sometimes she feels as though Maura is too attached to it as a nickname. She's given Maura a few nicknames of her own, 'babe' chief among them, but Maura seems to have decided that she's going to call Jane Jay no matter what Jane says about it.
It is oddly validating.
"I do feel pleasure from them, just not that much. Not all at once," there's so much that Jane wants to say to Maura. She doesn't think that Maura understands that this experience is unique for Jane. That she's never really come during sex before, and that it's an amazing and beautiful feeling.
Maura's lips are pulled into a pensive look and Jane swallows. "I had hoped that in providing joint stimuli to your female genitalia and male prosthetic that the experience would be pleasurable for you."
Jane groans and rolls over.
Maura Isles is the most un-fucking-sexy person in the fucking world.
"It was awkward okay? I didn't think I would feel quite so terrified as you were doing it." Jane's talking into the pillow, but she can feel Maura's hand on her arm and knows she's listening. It's safer here, talking to the pillow. "I had to have the cock, I was so fucking scared that you were going to make me get it out and then not fucking put it on. I didn't want that. I wanted to feel like a normal human being for a fucking change, but you made me feel so goddamn amazing, Maur." Jane sits up. "I almost feel like I just had like… rather kinky and really hot lesbian sex."
"Well, truth be told and biologically speaking…"
"Don't you say another fucking word." Jane is on her, kissing her, pushing that goddamn lacy thing out of her fucking away and touching Maura's breasts. She's practically naked, she knows she should be more covered, but it's Maura and she's pretty sure that she's okay with this.
More sure of anything than she's ever been in her life anyway.
Jane pushes up into Maura and she can still feel how sensitive she is under her cock. It feels good, fucking Maura then, her teeth biting a matching hickey into Maura's neck and her cock driving Maura closer and closer towards ecstasy.
Maybe she's a fool and in love, but Jane Rizzoli is perfectly happy to have this.