Note - This chapter is based on true events.
xiv. love me tender
"Don't hold back with me. For anything. I told you last weekend to submerge into me. You can't do that if you leave parts of yourself behind. I can't take you completely if you won't give all of yourself to me."
In a continuum of pauses, the cheerful sounds of counting from ten down from the big screen television and the full house of drunks went right through her. Lightning found that she wanted to be anywhere but here; anywhere. Here was in the living room of her sister's home, wearing her black uniform, wearing the warm front of Fang's body against her. There was an arm draped about her shoulder while another lazy arm supported the hand carrying a thick glass of cognac. Of course her own arms were wrapped about that wantonly waiting waist. It was impatient, begging, demanding in its proximity.
She was wearing it. Fang was harnessed with her want, purchased or otherwise. It stayed against Light, attempting to invade the barrier of her pants. Uncomfortable couldn't begin to describe her sentiments. If blood could curdle underneath one's skin, she was sure hers had turned sour along with her attitude. Yet she did not show it. Out of some…misplaced remorse she felt, she lost her usual no-nonsense attitude that night in Fang's glassy eyes and was not obliged to go looking for it.
There was a still moment, where everything slowed down as the count reached seven. She wanted to look around, to see all the people who didn't have anyone like Fang. Her Fang. Lightning wore nonchalance while she looked right through that green glass separated by the brim of a perfect nose beaded with sweat. Portentousness hailed from her, for having a woman so, so pretty. And so petty. By Etro if she knew it better than anyone, better than Vanille, deep-down, Fang was petty. She too was green when it came to her emotions. It took no longer than spending a few minutes in Fang's oddly outgoing presence to figure out that she was afraid. Afraid of the way Lightning made her feel.
Five, they were saying—five. Officially, the amount of months they had been dating. About six months was how long Fang had kept her fears from her. Surely she thought that, perchance, if she ignored them they would simply float away and disintegrate into nothing. Nothing… Nothing ever turns into nothing. There was never any empty space, anywhere.
Lightning's head certainly wasn't empty. She was not some vapid idiot for a woman. Three, yes, three, what an interesting number. Perhaps the amount of eyes Fang thought her girlfriend to have.
If she was an idiot then that would make impulsive, impatient Fang the master of hiding her emotions. The master was her, Lightning. Fang had a lot to learn.
There was a warning in her nonchalance. A warning to not try and take her for a fool. Fang clearly didn't see it, for she kissed her during the eruption of the new year. The voices and cheering and fireworks and gunshots were but poor renditions of the way Light still felt on the inside with those feverish lips on hers. Oh if there were euphemisms in the form of actions, she was doing one in returning the fervor. An action so often misunderstood as amorous was in fact quite full of admonition. She couldn't stop because she didn't trust herself to not demand that Fang spill everything already. Fang was trying not to tremble in her arms for Etro's sake!
Irony was inclination for Light to allow herself to be pulled upstairs for much needed privacy. She appreciated a good trick, a clever ruse. Instinct told her to go along with it. Just do it. It was better than pretending as though she was enjoying the festivities.
She didn't feel as though she belonged there, or anywhere. The grip Fang's hand had on hers was making a suggestion as she hurried them both upstairs to her room. She could be elsewhere. She would be elsewhere. She was going there no matter what she said or did.
What a happy fucking new year this was turning out to be.
What the hell was sobriety anymore? Light didn't know. Chastity, dignity, such dainty terms. Honor, pride, such flippant things all of a sudden. It had all been stripped from her, along with her uniform, so impatiently so harshly. Such need in those hands that had tried to keep steady while Lightning lay on her bed, in her room, in her sister's home. She was upon her back in nothing but a black bra, straddled. So quickly? No, no, to her it had all been so slow, so slow…so…slow… The slowness was so blinding in the moonlit darkness that she hardly noticed when Fang had gone from clothed to completely bare.
There was a time when she had planned how her first time with Fang would be. She had always told herself it would be special; that she would make everything special. She would be the one to take her, ease her, please her in any way she wanted with everything she had. Lightning never wanted to be on the bottom. She never wanted to have been so helpless to stop anything from happening. The helplessness lay in the smooth burning she felt along the small of her back at that very moment.
Bestridden she was, along her bare waist, just looking at it. Looking, watching, making sure it wouldn't pounce and take her. Away from this moment.
The party was still going strong downstairs. The music was playing loudly, bass thronging high, making it clear that they were alone but not alone. There were people in the house. Anyone could have come in at any minute, for Fang hadn't allowed the door to be locked. Lightning had tried to lock it, but her hand had been snatched away and forced to feel that bulge beneath her sari. The one no one seemed to notice before. The one that, in all honesty, Light was not ready for at all.
Fang was blocking the moon behind her. Lightning felt every unremarkable force in her room gather into a vortex between her when her wrist was held gently, guided, making her hand hover over it. It? Why couldn't she accept another term for it? And there she went again—there went Fang's arousal showing itself again, in the hardness. How hard it was, that Lightning couldn't even muster the energy to keep her hand held in Fang's. She couldn't even look her in the eye right now.
And Fang liked it. Her tone was oh so demeaning in her banter, "I bet you're wonderin' how we got this far so soon." Not exactly, no…she knew she had blanked out during several scenes of her internal tragedy. She couldn't exactly lie the fault to habit, considering her virginity. "This wasn't how you planned things to go."
Lightning kept her eyes right where they were. "Obviously." It somehow grew harder still, curled ever-so-slightly, almost to the point of touching her hand. Her head began swimming in the deep end, in the softness of her pillow underneath. "You get a kick out of my attitude?" She saw her affirmative answer. "You're sick."
"I know… but I like what I like. You're here to learn exactly what that is." Fang let go of her hand, as though expecting Light's to simply take hold of the length. It was big, but not some huge monstrous thing. Definitely not something Lightning wanted to touch. She retracted her hand. Her disobedience only made Fang give a sinister smirk, "What's the matter? You don't like it? I bought it just for you."
"I think you bought it more for yourself than for me right now." Lightning gave her a cold look, finally. The only thing she liked about it was how it showed her under no uncertain terms Fang's enjoyment. It helped her to see what she liked. That was it… "You don't have to wear it if you only want to teach me what it is you want. I know how to follow instructions."
"But Lightning…" Fang's hands smoothed along the white sheets at either side of her, bringing her body down with her, over her, but not on her. The contact of that swell against her own along the fabric of her bra didn't quite affect her as much as it normally should have. "I want this too. I want you, like this, as you are right now. You're tryin' to keep your dignity, and that makes me want to rip it away from you…"
"Fang, wait—" Wade in and out of her throat her control did, so oddly, like the sound that came from her. It was too soft to be from her. With Fang's two fingers were there against her, inclining against her, all inclination for silence and character was null. "What are you doing…?"
She looked and sounded so pleased, "How the hell aren't you wet? Well I'll be damned! Guess I've got my work cut out for me!" Hardly. Those fingers were nervous, tentative all of a sudden. Lightning kept staring at her frigidly, aware of her position, aware of how much she wanted to focus on how she was being touched. She couldn't. "You're gonna make me work to get you wet…aren't you?"
Light shrugged, giving a flippant reply while Fang moved to lay right next to her, "Whatever turns you on." She looked to her other side at the unopened condoms. A strong feeling pervaded, telling her that they would likely remain unused tonight while she turned to Fang, "You're really sick, you know that?"
Her words went unheeded, temporarily. The hand stroking Light's arm while she sat up was inviting, but not inviting enough. The other was already, slowly, at work elsewhere. Lightning kept her knees bent, legs to one side while her propped arm supported her weight. She watched, scowled, unable to keep eye contact at the moment. Instead she tried to focus on the sleek movements of Fang's entire hand. How lithe her fingers were, how sharp her nails were; how her wrist curled so sensually once she reached the head while she continued to tempt.
The act wasn't tempting at all. The movement was. The sounds were, definitely…she still sounded surprisingly feminine for one so fearless and feral. That was what made Lightning feel a wet brand in the shape of a small circle between her. The wet burning began to ebb down a little too hard when Fang eased Light's head down to rest on her bare shoulder, when she began to speak. The sound of her voice kept cutting her conscience, not necessarily the words…no, not the words…
Shuddering, like a camera in Lightning's mind while she memorized, was her voice, "Unngh, damn you… Look…at what…you've turned me into… Look." She pressed Light's head closer to her chest, kept her there. The sight was unbelievable, completely beautiful in all its soft silver angles and not-so-soft signs of simmering and the stimulating of skin, "This ain't nothin' like I thought it would be…but… I refuse to go on…without this… Fuck waiting…!" Faster, faster, faster her hand and her soft breaths went. Finally, faster faster faster Light's chest dented and undented. "You wanna wait…? You're waiting! I…will…fuck you, Lightning. BOTH of you!"
Fang stopped her hand suddenly, snatching it through the air to latch onto Light's hips. A rising sensation lifted her on the inside, starting right at her center; Fang finished the job by picking her up. She stood up with her at an alarming speed, spinning around and stumbling forward to slam Lightning's back against the cold wood of her door. Light had clamped her long legs about Fang's waist and crossed her ankles, wrapped her lean arms around Fang's neck in her surprise. Aroused surprise.
Sharp nails and heated fingertips and perspiring palms held the underside of her thighs, and she felt the wetness seeping down there. She felt the hardness beneath her, as though she was sitting on it and but to get off of it. She was looking down at Fang's glistening, heaving chest, at all there was to see below there. She was overwhelmed by the smell of her closeness, of how splendid she looked, wearing her. Her muscles were visibly aching with a need Lightning never thought she could ever instill in anyone.
No, she didn't want this—what they were about to do—but she wanted Fang. We play by my rules now. Her rules put Lightning in a delicate situation. She understood now how terrifying it was. How disarming it was, to be there, in the needy clutches of the one she loved. Again, this was Fang's way of showing her the power of powerlessness.
I'll be whatever you want me to be.
And if this was what Fang wanted…
Was this compromise? Love? This—this tender, epicene surge she felt in her veins all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes and eyelashes—was this…what Fang was so afraid to feel?
If it was…Light was in no place to demand that they return their original scripts to one another. She had to be the stronger one, afterall…
"Yes, Lightning…" came Fang's growl; she scowled hard to challenge Lightning's piercing regard. And Light would be damned if she closed her eyes even to blink—the amour Fang was emanating was so… "I am sick…I'm sick, for you… I'm gonna make you feel the exact way I've been feelin' since you left!"
No warning except for moving one of her hands down between them. None except for quickly adjusting her hips, her length. Nothing could have prepared her for that shockingly sudden, quick and thick invasion that ripped her and tipped her head back to rake her door. The loudest, most guttural scream scratched her throat until it bled on its way out, and Fang did not stop; only rammed her hips back and forth in ways that shouted how much she needed this control, needed this chance to finally know her.
Lightning gripped intrepidly at the black locks in her reach, quickly moving one arm to at least hold Fang properly around her tensing back. Eye contact was kept; Fang too kept an arm around Light's back, kept her movements the same, kept pushing and pushing her aching muscles for access to her world. But Lightning only stayed there in her arms, looking at her; trying to figure out how the hell it was possible to feel so much spacious pain in but one small space of her body. It hurt it stretched it burned everywhere.
"Goddamn you, Goddamn you," she rumbled, her hips searching faster and faster; begging harder and harder yet Light would not budge, would not make a sound. The pain was soon spreading to her face flushed in her surprise; her shock at seeing this side of Fang, "Let me in! I'm fucking you right here and you…" Harder and harder she went, palpitating against someplace profound, "…you won't even react at all! How…?" Fang inclined upward, a little; enough to pound the shape of a long shivering sensation inside her, but it wasn't anywhere near enough for her, "…how, how, how?"
The sheer commotion of everything, outward and inward, was shaping her eyes thin, making Lightning narrow them to hide her glistening pain. Fang had lowered her head slightly, looking into her as deeply as possible, keeping their faces but a millimeter apart. The speed made their heads and breasts touch often, pushing off the other. Fang had tried to undo her bra with one hand but gave up after only three seconds. Lightning was trying to enjoy this, but it wasn't happening—perhaps…Fang was trying too hard.
The minor banging of the door against her stopped with Fang, and she was panting, sweating, looking madly drained. She was starving for something that Light could not supply her with right now. It was unexpected that she pulled out quickly, making Lightning hiss painfully, and walked with her to the bed. Her hold was strong, somehow gentle while she set her down on the soft mattress, on the cool sheets as she had been before. Light averted her gaze, listening to Fang use her teeth to tear open a condom wrapper and put the contraceptive on.
She shut her eyes, feeling the night's events close in on her. The memory of the pain that had found her eyes was still there. It materialized into a stinging she couldn't fight—a minor shuddering of her body she couldn't shake away. Somewhere, she wanted this. To understand Fang, she wanted this. it had nothing to do with her own body, her own pleasure she couldn't focus on or even feel for the most part.
"Light…" A flapping sound, and then her sheets glossed over her exposed body, covering her in time with the warmth of Fang's body. She had turned on her side a little, trying not to cry; unable to be seen this way. Unable, but she was anyway—there was no running away from this. "This…this is the way I felt…" Her face burned in an embarrassed sort of pleasure when Fang eased her thighs apart, settling comfortably in between her. "I felt worthless without you, ugly without you…like the lonesome orphan I am, without you…"
It was feline the way she crawled over her, stayed over her on all fours. Lightning felt that throbbing right against her, and she felt sick with a kind of want she never knew she could possess… "I have no idea how you did it…but everything stopped when you left. Didn't feel like doin' anything anymore…" Gentle fingertips and ghosts of nails grazed her face, turning it with the same care. She felt the distance between their faces close and close while she came closer, began easing inside of her. Lightning opened her watery eyes at Fang's next words that filled her steadily, mirroring the movement between her, "I swear, I didn't even have a story anymore."
The kiss was as filling as she was, as pressing and poignant as all of this had become. There was more friction this time, even more need, somehow, simply from the way Fang was holding her, latching her hands against the back of her shoulders. Fang was going steady, undulating her entire body into Lightning this time, keeping their mouths otherwise motionless. The rocking was not intrusive, but massaging with a bodily rub that felt of sheen and sheer effort.
Fang was trying so hard—she could hear it in those frequent, softer sounds—but Lightning just couldn't let go. Of course she held her and kept her legs around those trying hips, but her mind was being blocked by the realness of the act. She was doing this. Fang was making love to her, she knew it, she felt her—here—but, and there was always a but, she couldn't…
Not even while she heard such affecting words whispered so hard in her ears…she couldn't.
"You feel the way I'm holdin' you now…? It's how I've wanted it, for weeks. Clingin' to you, like this, to get you to let go…" She tightened her grip and began moving into her subaqueously, so much deeper; so much slower. Lightning finally let out a soft breath laced with her weakened voice, from the meaning. "If it's a sin to love you this much…" Finally, she felt that wild pulsing inside of her—her own pulsing around Fang, "then I don't care. I'll keep countin' my sins…til you have to leave again…I'll spend my—nnh!—time…doin' that while you're away. Anything…but a repeat…of the past…two months…"
She was hungry; her teeth and mouth were watering against Lightning's neck while everything picked up. The rocking turned to thrusting, and she let out a muffled grouse against Fang's shoulder moving into her and back again near constantly. "You…took everything from me…" The constant moving and Fang's increasing throbbing kept trying and failing to light a match in her mind. She kept trying to feel everything, listen to those trying, strangled sounds that were so sweet to her eager ears, "I tried not to show it…tried…fuck…! Tried not to…not to…let everything get to me…"
Lightning felt Fang shuddering in her arms, and changed her hold to one of affection. She understood.
An arm moved from underneath her, to wrap underneath her head, for Fang's hand to hold her face. The band of her ring moved against her flushed skin in time with everything; with everything Fang was moving, distending, keeping her face pressed against the other side of Light's. Tightness, she could feel everywhere—between her and the constant stretching, between them with how close they were pressed together and all of Fang's weight on top of her. Fang was gripping her face, keeping them pressed so tightly together, tightening and giving more and more pressure and more and more still…
"Lightning… Oh, Lightning…Light…what've you done to me…what have you done?" She had no idea. None whatsoever as to how she was silently making Fang put in so much effort, physically, vocally; fuck, those moans kept her wet, easing the friction by the second, "You don't even know…you don't…! How can you not!" If Fang had had any control over herself until now, she lost it now, "TELL me!"
Light told her the only thing she could, "I love you, Fang… I love you." That did it; that tore her apart inside of her, sent everything out, made her cry out through a raspy throat. All of the throbbing she felt built into one final motion, one final profound movement that raised Fang to where she needed to be, but without her. Lightning trembled deliciously, giving the hair shining black and quicksilver just in front of her the same kind of groan.
It was admirable how Fang tried to keep going, but Lightning's gesture of rubbing her sweating back told her to stop. She collapsed on her with more weight than before, gasping for air, steadily releasing her grip on Light's body. She was trying to say something, but it was coming out as a series of strangled panting, to which Lightning only shushed her gently and held her in the same manner. The throbbing started up again for a second but began to dissipate with every press of her lips against Fang's drenched face. She wondered when the music stopped and the house grew so quiet, but it was but a fleeting thought.
So much energy given, so much effort… Light felt bad, almost terrible…but what could she do except hold her? Painfully she eased Fang's length from her, wincing, letting out a grunt once she was finally out. The condom was removed and thrown carelessly somewhere on the floor, the time for cleanliness having left for a long while once they had first entered her room. She situated Fang so that she was on her side, Lightning still on her back, and a head sweating silver resting on her chest.
With some effort the white duvet was brought over them, bathing them in a sheen of cold for a moment before adjusting to the feel. Lightning didn't say anything more, only held Fang while she slept deeply, breathing audibly and so peacefully. So many words, left unspoken between them…so many… She couldn't blame Fang for reversing things that night, not anymore. Expressing herself by doing—that had always been one of her finer points.
She would listen to every single voicemail the second she had the chance.