The Messiness of Life
By Victoria G.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters in this story.
Fandom: A mix of Mai HiME and Mai Otome characters, AU.
Rating: M.
Author's Note: The promised M chapter. A giant thank you to all who read this fan fiction, an even bigger thank you to those who reviewed it. I hope you all enjoyed it… and the epilogue will be coming at some point in the future.

Narrative #29: Being With Her
Date: May 3, 2014 … a Saturday

She'd come home with me, presumably with the intention of taking this further. We'd barely spoken on the ride home…only quick glances. The both of us were thinking… me mostly about her… and her, I could not even begin to guess. It was obvious to me that she was taking me back to my own home fairly soon after we left and I did not comment on it, tried not to be concerned about it. The first thing she did when we were inside... when I had locked the door... was kiss me, which caught me off guard. The second was to stare into my eyes afterward, rebuild the tension in me, blush sweetly and then confuse me utterly by requesting to use my shower. I'd only nodded... feeling a bit adrift. She wished to rinse the salt from her skin I assumed, having been at the beach all day… it should make more sense than it did.

I'd decided perhaps I should do the same… and so I walked in something of a daze to my bedroom, ignoring the sounds of running water, the visions in my head of where those drops were falling at the moment. I selected a few items of clothing and with a sigh, made my way down the hall toward the alternate bedroom I used primarily as an office. I'd used the second bathroom to wash myself as well… if only to prevent myself from climbing in with her. Invading her shower would likely not be the best way to handle this. That much I was sure of even if she would be conveniently divested of clothing already. I'd yet to remove any article of clothing from her, to touch anything more intimate than a neck or a shoulder or the top of a chest…her back occasionally but only with my hands beneath her shirt. There was a reason for that, even if I was the reason. I could not banish the recent memory of her lips on my breast as the water ran across me, my hair up and out of the way. The pressure of the falling water was almost annoying and I made short work of cleansing my skin. As happy as I was to simply be with her without pretending I felt nothing… I would admit to myself it was not enough. It had taken all my strength to resist seducing her thus far, most especially because I was certain from the look that appeared in her eyes at times, a look that concentrated my own feelings into a pulsing ball of need…that I'd be successful. Perhaps I'd half-seduced her once or twice… but it was her hands, her mouth on my body first. I'd tried to approach this from a logical perspective, to consider my past, and decided before her lips called my decisions into question, that I did not want to be the one to initiate. That was not entirely honest… I did want to be… but I thought I should not be.

Now that it appeared she was ready, I still felt this little pang of fear I'd not felt before… that this, even though I would enjoy it immensely, despite the short-lived solace such activities seemed to bring me… it would not be the same for her. That the brush of our skin would somehow sully her…upset her. It was a thought that I wished I could crumple like a used sheet of paper… toss away or burn. I was so tired of having such thoughts biting at me. She'd taken me home with no small amount of suggestion in her voice. It stood in opposition to those beliefs... brought this all from the realm of imagined into reality… warm-skinned, beautiful, willing reality. I was surprised by the mild panic I felt at the possibility of having something I desired so intensely being unashamedly given to me.

Perhaps the truth of it was that I could not completely trust myself with her… and that was what scared me so much. I could not truly conceive of us staying together… not until we'd done this, not until I'd woken up next to her and seen not a trace of regret in her face, not a single indication that I'd pushed her into anything or that there was anything in what was between us that she found distasteful. My loving Natsuki… I had not yet said that I did… I had come close tonight, though. I wondered how obvious the depth of my feelings was to her. I hoped not too… because I did not want to say I love you, to sleep with her and have her walk away because the love I felt was too tainted with desire… too tainted in general. I did not want the things I still feared were true reaffirmed, to hear them spoken by her, to have her face as she said them etched irrevocably into my brain. Natsuki was not the same person…I was not exactly what I had been then either. I reminded myself of all this yet again as I toweled my body dry and dressed.

As I came back into my bedroom, feeling cleaner but no more comfortable in a fresh set of clothes, I watched her as she stared off into space. She was wearing an outfit I very much enjoyed, a shirt she'd left here on purpose, with the shorts she'd been wearing, likely because she had nothing else here save a pair of dress pants. Like most items of clothing that she owned, they fit her well. She'd also kept her hair up in the shower… it was as dry as mine. This night was progressing strangely… both of us here… now clean and dressed again.

Her knees were bent and drawn to her chest, eyes slightly hooded. It was the same far away pose she often assumed when things became intense between us... as if she were stewing herself in the sensation. It was one of the more delicious looks I'd ever seen on her face, second only to the one she made in response to chocolate. There was something different in her posture now. I could sense that Natsuki was anxious, but not so nervous that it had prevented her from touching me earlier. As a general rule, she was seldom so nervous that it prevented her from doing anything she wanted to… which should have been a comfort. What I did not know was why she felt that way. Slowly, but with an ease that was meant to disguise my worry, I walked over to the side of the bed, preparing to climb in beside her.

"I want to." Her low voice came out of nowhere and though it was quiet, it filled the room. I could tell she was avoiding looking my way and I tried to hide my surprise that she wanted to talk about this. What she couldn't say concerned me, but I hid it behind a gentle smile.

I glanced down at her, tucking a strand of mildly unruly hair behind my ear, pushing a bit of honesty out. "Do I make you nervous, Natsuki?" It was possible I was the reason.

"I didn't want it to be outside." Her eyes held a flatness that I'd not seen in them for some time. I wondered if it was on purpose… I hoped she'd not learned that from me. "And it's not you. It's this."

That answer was not one I expected, but I opted to clarify… to ensure that we were speaking of what I believed we were. "Sex makes you nervous?"

She was avoiding meeting my eyes, only a quick glance, and a slight frown. "It always has." At least it was not about the both of us being women… or about me. It would not be a new thing for me, to be with a woman who was not completely comfortable with the idea of it… but the way that her discomfort stayed with me, pulled from me a need to soothe it, was new. Before I would have been content to simply overwhelm her with sensation, to pit body against mind… but this… this… with her…I wanted it to be more. I had no 'how' for that.

"There is no reason to rush." There were many reasons to rush, the most pressing of which was the growing sense that I might explode. I was not being even the slightest bit honest with her. Why my deception felt so wrong when it was what was best for her…

"Shizuru…" Lips pulled to the side, but her gaze fell steadily on me… a slow close of her eyelids and then green again. "I think about it. I've been thinking about it. I wanna touch you." She held my eyes and I tried not to react too obviously to words that made me want to throw myself before her and plead. The fact that she had chosen to say 'touch you'… had stated her desire to do so somehow added to the unintentional eroticism of her statement. The fact that she had stated her want openly… it was something I had not known I'd needed to hear, yet still, there was resistance in me.

"Truly, there is no reason it needs to happen now if you do not feel ready." A part of me cursed in frustration as I said this, clawed at my skin and a sudden and completely bizarre urge to ring my own neck arose. That strange, wild part of me… the part I could never silence despite all that I still feared was true, that never could behave rightly, that wanted what it wanted outside of consequence and steered me in such activities all too often … that part of me was mercilessly shoving, twisting, scratching to be freed. Perhaps that was also a part of what scared me, the prospect of her seeing that side of me… bared and wanting as I had been tonight… and then she'd stopped. She'd already explained why though… had she not?

Her eyes were downcast, her expression frustrated as she prepared to say whatever she was planning to say. "I'm not gonna be ready."

Those words worried me terribly, but the firmness behind them convinced me to continue this talk. I moved closer to her, brushing her hand with mine. "Do you not think with a bit more time that you might…."

"I won't." She was staring at me, serious and unshakably present.

I was embarrassed, but could not show it… could not explain how animalistic my desires made me feel in her shadow. I forced more softness from my body, let my fingertips trace her cheek. The temptation was still so strong. I wanted to rush this… I wanted her with such intensity that it nearly overwhelmed me, but as much as it pained me, I still recognized that was exactly why I should not take the lead even if it was being offered. Swallowing my own desires, I looked at her, holding her eyes, smiling at her. "There is nothing about what we do now that I do not enjoy."

"That's not what I meant." There was a touch of aggravation in her tone and I wondered if I had been too eager, showed too much of it to her already.

"Kanin-na, but does it seem as though I am dissatisfied?"

"No." Her eyes fell shut as she interrupted. "Damn it." She moved forward to the edge of the bed, legs parting around me as I stood between them blinking down at her. "I don't want it to be like this." I was all curiosity and pounding heart and my mind tripped over messages I could not untangle. It left me with alternating flashes of heat and hurt. Her eyes were almost fighting with mine and though I could not have given voice to the topic of argument, I felt a tide of defensiveness rising in me anyway. "Don't make this another thing to keep away from yourself."

Another touch of humiliation washed over me… that it would be so obvious, my struggle to contain myself… "There are some things which must be controlled."

Her eyes never left mine as she spoke. "You're not a thing."

The seriousness in her voice, it unsettled me and I fell into a smile, feeling guilty for it. I was not sure if she was twisting my words, or if I had let slip something that was unintentionally truer than what I would have said if I'd been more careful. "Natsuki should not be so concerned. It is for the sake of what is between us that I..."

"Shizuru!" The tone of her voice drew my attention immediately. She did not usually speak to me with that commanding tone… had not since our first meetings. "Stop talking." Hands gripped the hem of my shirt tightly, forehead falling to my abdomen. Fingertips crept beneath the fabric and onto my bare stomach. "Let me." Another demand, spoken low as she touched my skin.

I was too shocked to say anything anyway. I did not know what I was more afraid of… her stopping or her continuing. She pushed the shirt up, palms sliding along my ribs and placed her lips on the skin above my navel, her touch grew in steadiness. My eyes fell closed and I threaded fingers in her hair, still incredibly surprised as she ran her nose along my abdomen. Whatever bit of me would continue to fight this broke over a soft sigh.

That nose…its slight curve, perfect shape, and smoothness made me smile each time I felt it touch me. She was so prone to running the tip of it along my neck, my jaw, my ear… the feel of her piercing as it rested against my collarbone was familiar by now. As she pulled back, I sat beside her and she lifted my shirt higher. I raised my arms, disbelieving, yet letting her remove it completely. Her eyes flicked down to my chest, widening.

I lifted my hand to her chin, bringing her face to mine with my fingertips, kissing her.

She forced an exhale from between her teeth, green drifting up to me then down again. Hands raised, confidence finding some purchase and I covered her hands with my own almost without thought, brought each to my mouth before letting them go. One palm she rested around my shoulder, while the fingertips of her other followed the edge of the cup of my bra. She seemed quite fascinated by the fabric itself, yet again running her fingers along it as though appreciating its lines, the trim work. I'd chosen it on purpose and happily, it seemed I'd been right. I wondered how deep her interest in these things ran. The pressure of it was something I could just barely feel. Her caressing fingertips, where they hit my bare skin were so very warm and pulled me from my wanderings.

She brought her lips to mine as her hand slipped from my shoulder to my hair. Our chests brushed and I tried not to react too strongly when she began to kiss back in earnest, body relaxing…just a kiss with less clothing, just this… for now. My mind was submerged in the sensation, beneath the scent of my own soaps on her skin… hints of jasmine and mandarin as her body warmed. Lingering alongside those pretty smells was one belonging to her specifically… they absolutely filled my head. I was very nearly breathing her in. Thankfully it seemed to affect her as well and she hummed slightly, pulling in air through her nose, fingers flexing against my side. I let my hands tangle in the black silk that hung from her head. Hot puffs of air hit my lips when she pulled away and I could feel the pounding pulse in her neck, tapping against my forearm.

I held my breath when her fingers moved to reach between my breasts, undoing the clasp. Her stare was fixed on my body even with the loosened cups still covering most of me. Feigning a calmness I did not possess, I smiled as she paused for a moment, before pushing the fabric away. The cool air in the room was a balm on my heated skin… felt almost like a touch.

The way she looked at me, pinked cheeks and riveted attention… it gripped my heart, made it throb painfully against my ribcage as it tried to reach her. Those piercing eyes, they seemed to remember themselves and darted away for a brief moment, before settling on my face.

"Does Natsuki not like my breasts?" I teased against her ear, leaning in, trying to recover from the impact of that gaze… but there was some seriousness in the question because she had not attempted to place her hands on me. The metal of her earrings was so smooth on my lips as I dragged them across the top of her ear… a pleasant distraction from how uncharacteristically bashful I felt. I had never needed reassurance of my own attractiveness from a lover, enjoyed it certainly, but not needed it… perhaps because more often than not, I had it beforehand… but tonight I wished for it, and there was a certain amount of embarrassment trapped inside that. Fear and desire, they were so intertwined within her gaze and that fear... it wound its way around my own. I slipped my hands slow and steady beneath her shirt, needing the contact to refocus and her stomach muscles clenched almost spastically. Her body was tight and tense and I was unsure of this as shining eyes met mine… they were so deep that I felt like I was being swallowed whole.

The expression in them was much like confusion, eyelids sliding down to keep something from me. Her apprehensions and my own… they mixed quickly… it may have been too soon. Yet as they opened, it was as though a switch had been flicked… a new look appeared, desire overtaking the nervousness from moments before…mouth falling into a rather serious looking straight line. I found it so distracting that I did not realize she had moved, not until her palm was at the center of my chest, until I was being pushed onto my back, her lips covering mine as her hair fell around me, arms at either side of my head.

A moan escaped me, floating into her mouth when her sudden boldness manifested in a hand running up my clothed thigh. My disbelief was so great that I was quite literally stunned to immobility while she pulled back. I could only watch as her eyes again fell to my chest, a hand surrounding one, her head lowering to the other. The open, concentrated fascination she displayed at the reactions of my body to her touch, to the experimental licks and bites and squeezes she was giving me… it evoked unexpectedly powerful reactions in me. Curious interest… it sparkled as she turned her gaze from my skin to my face, her cheeks oddly uncolored in a situation I'd have guessed they would be. I had never felt quite like this, but the exact difference escaped me. It seemed too simple an explanation I thought… that feeling could yield such a monumental disparity of experience.

Her movements again snatched my attention completely, pulling her name from me… divided and breathy and I could not help but allow myself the pleasure of her strong shoulders beneath my palms. That rich voice vibrated against me as her hand traveled up my thigh again, dragging the fabric of the skirt I was wearing with. It was soon removed.

The shirt that she had on, even though the fabric appeared smooth, was slightly coarse on my breasts and stomach when she moved up to kiss me. I was surprised to find that the sensation of it pulling across me was not at all unpleasant. In fact, the roughness wakened my skin further and I had it in my mind to remove such a distraction until her hands were at my hips. They were following the lace that remained and she lifted herself, moved down. Another few minutes passed of soft palms, wandering trails, hair on my thighs, my struggling to let her do as she wished and I had to reach down and touch her face because my hips were difficult to still against her touch…I wanted to undress her as well.

"Natsuki…" I said it softly and it seemed to call her to action rather than slow her down. She looked down at my body before she slid the last of my clothing away, and staring… it was too gentle a word for how she looked at my naked body after pulling back. Her knife's edge gaze… it somehow left me feeling more bared as it glided over my skin. My legs bent, slightly parted, every bit of me visible and her eyes dragging over me… this shyness, it was a reaction I found she was quite adept at causing in me.

She ran a slow hand, fingers spread and palm flat, across my stomach, stopping at the border of my ribs…my abdomen rising beneath her touch when I inhaled as much for strength as air. The warmth of her hand created a shudder that danced along my spine and left with my breath. When her eyes finally crept up to meet mine, there was strangeness inside them, and so I bit back the tease on the tip of my tongue. Instead, I curled my body upward, cupped her cheek and brought her face toward mine. Her body followed without resistance and I watched as her eyebrows knit together… kissed her deeply. My hands slid beneath her shirt again, while she hovered above me, craving the feel of her skin again, over her still covered breasts and she jerked back, lying nearly on top of me. I looked at her questioningly and she answered by bringing her mouth to my neck, pressing her leg against me … causing a gasp from both of us.

Her hand turned my head to the side, exposing more to her. Hot air on my nape, a hand covering my breast, kneading me… these things held my eyes closed. I'd never been touched like this… not by someone while they were fully clothed. It was an act of submission, which I had no strict objections to… it was just not something to which I was accustomed. It was something I had only allowed with rare partners, but I was ambivalent at this moment… because as seducing as the energy pouring off her was, I wanted to feel her too. Any other thoughts were erased as she crawled off me, against my side instead, hovering a few inches below my navel and eying me as she kissed the crest of bone that rose beneath my skin. One of the arms steadying her upper body was planted between my legs, close enough to sense but with no contact… the other was beside my hip. She pressed lips to my skin once again and looked up at me… her torso over my thigh.

I glanced down at her a bit shocked. I hadn't expected her to be so obviously okay with her hands and mouth on my body, had not considered it as a possibility. I had imagined that this would be the difficult part for her, despite her willingness to touch me before. It was what my previous lovers had struggled with if they were nervous…their first time with another woman… touching me. There was no struggle in her though as she pushed herself forward and her teeth on the skin of my stomach… they stopped me from turning us as I wanted to. Where this confidence of hers had come from… where her fingers had come from, how they'd already made it higher…

"You're so soft." She murmured it more to herself than me, as though it perplexed her. I opened my eyes with some effort, drawn by the sound of her low voice. There was an almost analytical focus in her gaze as her hand massaged across my naked hip… patterns with a clear destination. She shifted herself, lying on her side next to me, knee bent and resting atop my own. Her eyes kept jumping up and down the length of me…and I realized her reason in positioning herself this way… so she could see both her hand and my face. I felt the color creep up my neck and claim my cheeks.

Having my leg captured beneath hers, positioned as I was… if we stayed this way… I would only be able to respond as she did what she wished to me. I tried to calm my nerves, a twinge of tension in me and I wondered if she realized how much control she'd once again taken from me… but my body had already made up its mind. My hips hurried to meet her hand as it drew closer and she glanced down. She had the most stunning depth to her gaze, an intensity that gave it weight, and with it fixed where it was, I could not stop myself as I descended into further supplication. My movements were begging her so overtly that words were thankfully unnecessary. The need I felt was becoming an ache and if a body could weep, mine would be sobbing for her… in a way it already was, had been before her lips pressed to my stomach, before tonight. Ignoring the sensation was no longer an option, despite my mind's stubborn determination to bring rational thought back into this.

As if I'd spoken my struggle, she pushed into me and I moaned as my thoughts popped like bubbles, scraps of pleasure taking their place. It startled me…the lack of timidity. Seeing those eyes drift downward, flick back up to watch my face as she touched me… I felt so opened and yet somehow, as my tension broke beneath the steady beat of this… it only served to pull me deeper into her, to feed the emotions that keep leaping from my heart toward hers. I shut my eyes again, absorbed by the feeling of her pushing relentlessly deeper, by the shocks of desire it was causing, Natsuki was causing. I could not stop myself from wanting this, from wanting her… could not do anything but collapse into what she was doing to me. I reminded myself that I no longer had to resist any of it. My head pushed back against the mattress, my back arching, forcing my leg into contact with her stomach, forcing sounds from me as I lost myself.

My hands, one crawled down, touching the arm she was using to brace herself as she experimented with me. There was not another description for her continuously gauging my responses… adjusting until she had found some combination of things that had me beside myself. I had never been able to keep myself quiet during such things… it was one of the few times my composure reliably failed me and what she was doing, how she was doing it, what I felt beneath it… I never stood a chance.

She slid up, pressing her lips to mine, groaned against them when I cried out against hers. The sound shot through me as did the depth of her touch, both made the arch in my back. Mind and body liquefied when thumb glided over me, all softness and sliding pressure. I could only meet her gaze as she studied me…head tilting with every shudder that coursed through me, eyes seeking. To be touched by her, while pools of green whispered all her secret thoughts… betrayed her with naked questions given voice by a glint or the curve of a brow. … there were no words for such a thing. Do you like this? Is that better? How do I make you do that again? My body answered helplessly, shifting and tilting, slave to that heated focus that was almost frighteningly intense. The way that she looked at me, loved me… a clear determination to figure out what pleased me… that she would be so full of purpose, that her purpose would be my pleasure with no thought given to herself… it was one of the most unsettlingly emotional, intoxicatingly erotic experiences I'd ever had. The world began to swirl, distorted by the mounting sensation inside me. All I could reach was honesty in my own responses… because the sucking tension that tugged at my abdomen as if her gaze held it captive by a chain pulled taut… all of it shook me until my consciousness splintered. Everything blinked away for a moment and then coalescing again…each labored breath helping to stitch me back together, a hand on my chest to hold my heart inside it. Yet she did not stop, slowed but only until I steadied...

"Natsuki?" I questioned her, but it did no good… the focus was still there. I want to touch you and those words vanishedbecause those lips at my ribs and those fingers…their bending contorted my body. "Natsuki!" My hands slapped against her skin, my feet curling and I felt the flush spill over most of my body. Wide green eyes continued observing, sorting the information… and I drew in an unsteady breath to stay myself against what I'd just revealed to her.

Same motion repeated, same response and I could not even look at her face, at those eyes as she continued this… we continued this… for fear my heart would burst as my body was about to. The heels of my hands dug into the mattress and I was teetering atop a pinpoint… its sharp tip snaring my emotions… running away with my balance, taking those trapped threads of feeling with as it tumbled over the edge. Surging feeling, crested and beat against my skin, my ribs, my skull. One more intense moment and then soft electric rain feathering across my skin…residual tingles of pleasure arcing and branching. My eyelids slid down as I tried to catch myself. I felt her shift again, the movement against over-sensitized skin making my stomach muscles pull. A clear-headedness I'd not felt in a solid three months settled over me as the last bits of strong sensation faded… a calm I'd been missing blew in like a breeze as I ran fingers through my hair, let them rest on my scalp while I found myself, a genuine smile on my lips. As I gathered the strength to look at her, I found her kneeling by my side and gazing saucer-eyed at her own hand. My gaze fell briefly to the moisture covering her fingers but snapped back as her face became a mask of perplexity. She lifted the tip of one to her mouth, brought it delicately to her lips… pulling her hand away and holding it a few inches from her mouth. Slowly our gazes met and held for a few silent moments... mirrored shock. She blushed, dropping her arm and I was finding it extraordinarily difficult to believe she'd just done that… done any of what happened.

Embarrassed eyes met mine and I sat myself up slowly, tucking shaking legs beneath me. Leaning over, I pressed my mouth to her downturned lips, which seemed to catch her unaware. My thoughts were very directed, unconfused… and I knew I wanted nothing but to please her for the remainder of the evening. Then without cause, her face slid into a pronounced frown, and my heart plummeted to my stomach. She was gathering herself, preparing to say something and a tide of anxiety began to stir inside me.

"I do like your breasts Shizuru." When she spoke those particular words, it was with such obvious annoyance, a verbal poke to my chest and I could not keep a straight face. I laughed her name quietly, as much from relief as anything else. She was far too adorable and I'd waited far too long already…

She tensed when my palms fell to her sides, but her tension did not tense me as it had before. A soft concern bounced in my chest instead. Her reaction to my hands on her body did worry me. It appeared that having her hands on me was something entirely different to her than allowing the reverse. "Will you not let me touch you?" I felt the need to ask.

She turned her head away and I was considering whether to attempt undressing her when hesitant hands clutched the light fabric of her own shirt…undoing the buttons that stopped half-way down her chest and lifting it off. There was much less confidence in her movements now, but I understood it to be an invitation.

Her face was kept hidden by her flexed neck as she sat in a gorgeous demi-bra and her shorts, the sight of which was almost too much. She wrapped an arm around her stomach, the other bent, hand resting on her shoulder like a shield. I moved closer to her slowly, trying to ignore the unsteadiness that had yet to leave my legs, afraid I'd spook her. I knelt in front of her, holding her too warm face in my hands and bringing her lips to mine again. My breasts were pressing lightly into the skin of her arms, sensitive from her earlier attentions. I wanted those arms gone so very badly, wanted them around me, wanted to feel our bodies touch even if there was cloth between us. Cautiously, I moved them, slid my hands into hers and brought us into a loose embrace.

She took over and placed them on my back, upper bodies brushing. I sighed at the heated softness that was broken only by the feel of satin and lace. A light moan tumbled from my lips while uneven exhales danced across them. Lifting her hair away from her shoulder, I kissed along the muscles there as they tightened, following them to her neck, distracted by the sensation of her stomach pressing against mine.

She clutched at my shoulder blades as I kissed at her skin. "… ah…shit…" The sounds were whispered, ground out from beneath her breath. Pushed from her mouth in such a manner, the curse sounded much like prayer. Tiny spasms and jerks shook her frame… I did not know whether it was anxiousness or sensitivity or a combination of both.

"Natsuki has such a foul mouth," I spoke against her jaw as I traced her supple bottom lip with my thumb. I felt the flush in her cheek warm the skin of my temple before a hot sigh spilled against my finger.

She was wearing far far too much… and so I followed along her stomach, along the waistband of her shorts, biting my lip as her air caught. Her eyes squeezed shut when I unbuttoned them. I pushed them down her legs smoothly until her current position made it impossible. She lifted herself for a moment, surprising me as she slid straight back, stiff and deliberate. It was puzzling because there were easier ways to move, but she kept herself rigid as though unable to turn in one direction or another while she removed them completely. My confusion evaporated with the sight of wonderfully made thighs that flexed visibly when she settled back down. She certainly had excellent taste in underwear. The very feminine panties trimmed with lace, a sort of light blue, a match to her bra, made me pause to take a breath simply to calm myself. I had been correct earlier, regardless of her protestations. Physically, she was perfect… I stood by that remark. Achingly beautiful…smaller framed and more slender than her walk, the way she carried herself suggested. I coaxed her down onto my lap, her legs parting around mine… body tight. I let my fingers slide, slow and full of purpose to the clasp of her bra where it sat over her spine, undoing it. The prospect of its removal, made her flinch… roll her shoulders back to keep it in place.

She eyed me sidelong for a brief moment and then leaned to the side, reaching for the light switch on the wall. So it was not only me touching them that bothered her, but me seeing them? I stopped her with a shake of my head and a hand on her arm, following it up to the strap on her shoulder, letting my fingers outline the edges of the fabric, loose but still in place. "Please, do not."

"Why?" She was flustered, nearly glaring at the lights.

"Because I want to see you," I said, willing myself steady, placing a kiss where my fingers had traced.

She gave me an intense stare tinged with desperation. I did not understand why this was so difficult for her. I did not think her that self-conscious. It was difficult to prevent myself from telling her how gorgeous I thought she was… but I did not think it would help, in fact, I thought it might hinder this further. The lights in my bedroom, all of them on still, were bright… perhaps it made her uncomfortable, but turning them off was not an option as far as I was concerned.

I kept her eyes, reaching slowly to cover the cloth with my hands, watching her reaction as I fit my hands over her covered breasts. Her eyelids clenched shut as she let me remove the bra. I felt my eyes widen at the sight of her bare chest, at the silver piercings that I had no reason to expect. It was the first time I'd ever seen such a thing in person. A tiny prick of discomfort shot through the peaks of my own breasts as I could not help but briefly imagine what it must have felt like. I could not argue with the visual effect… the small silver spheres that hugged either side just as my lips wished to for some time. My body clenched almost painfully as I gazed at her… I could not recall ever having been so unsubtle. These could not be her reason for wanting the lights out, I certainly would have noticed even if it were pitch black. The breath I took in was uneven as I tried to collect myself. My response troubled her, was likely misinterpreted and she went for the switch one more time.

Shaking my head again, I took her hand in mine. I did not want to do this in the dark where I could not see her eyes, her face, her body… I needed to know how she was feeling, that she wanted this. I could not let her be invisible to me, even if that would calm her… not the first time I touched her. I did not want this to be about me or what I wanted to do to her… though my mind had compiled a rather long list by now. I wanted it to be about us, and I was not entirely sure how to make that happen. It was not something I'd concerned myself with before, how to speak through touch, how to allow my eyes to be as open as hers without upset to compel me. I'd never needed to… and maybe… more importantly, I'd never wanted to. I brought her hand to my cheek, kissing the base of her palm, rubbing in smooth tracks down her side with my other.

"Please..." A more pleading tone than I wished to let through, but the idea that this would be held back from me now… it was equally as upsetting as the idea that I would push her too much. That balance between my resistance and my desire had shifted, I very much needed to touch her… needed her to allow me that. "Natsuki…you are so beautiful." It had to be said.

She closed her eyes when I said it and then it seemed as though she forced herself to look at me. Was it a hindrance? "So are you." It was said quietly and was not a response I expected, but was so very welcome. "There's something else." Her voice was a bit sharp and broke through the warmth that had filled me at her words. Her brow knit and she glanced sideways. "I have a tattoo."

I cocked my head and let her hand fall away from where I still held it against my face. I smiled at her softly, watching her eyes. "I was under the impression you had quite a few." She gave me a look. "Are you speaking of the one on your neck?" I let my fingers trace along her hairline, along the design I'd already run my lips over many times, but only seen once in its entirety and she shivered.

Jetting air from her nose, her face became the picture of apprehension. "No."

"Then this?" I ran my thumb along the inside of her wrist, bringing her hand to my mouth, kissing her fingertips. I could not bring myself to press my lips onto the skin of her wrist itself… not now that I knew it was her mother's name. It seemed irreverent to me… strange as that was. I was sure it was not the one that covered the top of her left foot …

Her eyelids fluttered. "I have one that covers my back."

I felt my eyebrows rise. She had a tattoo that covered the entirety of her back? I felt as though I should have known that… I'd touched it often enough. "Turn around."

She opened her mouth, but then just as quickly closed it. With a deep breath, she did as I asked, climbing off of me and turning around, making me momentarily regret the request, until she pulled her long hair in front of her as though parting a curtain.

To say that I was surprised would not be adequate. It was one of the most stunning sights I'd ever laid eyes on. Sharp black splashed low across her right side like spilled ink, a thorny circle of black rising from it, trapping a glowing reddish orb in the center. Thin lines shot out from it like branches. From those branches blossomed two silhouetted figures floating into the beginnings of what appeared to be an embrace, their forms dissolving into the air, green that matched her eyes outlining the breaking bits. Below, shards of ice erupted from the black, colored in a complementary array of blues and violets. On her right, the scratches of black became flowers, lilies nearly real in their vividness. Her skin itself, where it showed was pale and unblemished, made even more gorgeous when contrasted against the colors that broke it up. I felt the strangest urge to simply sit and contemplate a work of art on the prettiest canvas I had ever seen and I let my fingers touch, following the shapes firmly…

The tips of her ears turned red, but I ignored the blush… letting my fingers glide across the shades and hues that were impossible for human skin… letting my lips touch the blankness between the colors. I almost expected to feel it jumping up at me, but it was all smooth and soft as the rest of her. "How long did this take?"

"Years. I didn't get it all at once."

"Was it very painful?" I asked because I was curious and had no experience with such things. I pressed my lips to her shoulder as I waited for an answer, forgetting the nakedness of my own chest until it brushed against her cool skin. My eyelids fell closed at the sensation.

Her voice was low, almost husky when it came. "Some parts."

"Which parts?" I kept my lips against her as I spoke.

"Over my spine." I followed the ridges of bone that protruded from the indent dividing her back. "… ah… and near my ribs." I let my fingers run over them, pressing so as not to tickle and then lay my head between her shoulder blades, listening to the rush of air as she breathed. "Shizuru…" My name from her lips sounded as though she were cradling it with her voice. Very slowly, so that if she wished to pull away she would have time, I allowed my hands to travel further, to brush the sides of her breasts, to close over them, feeling the piercings press into my palms when she shivered.

"And these?" I drew my fingers to the tips of her breasts, sliding my chin onto her shoulder as she pulled in a sharp breath. "Were they painful as well?"

I pushed at the piercing with my thumb and she shuddered, air puffed through her nose. "They hurt like hell." My touches instantly gentled at the comment.

"They do not hurt now?" Unsure what to do, I placed a thumb and forefinger on the end of each piercing, getting used to them, pulling them very lightly, bringing my lips to her neck at the same time.

She was making the most beautiful little sounds, sounds that sunk into my skin like a lover's words. "No." I wanted to ask her if it felt different, how it felt different, but her embarrassment would likely be too great. "It freaks you out." She said quietly, a touch of frustration there.

I ran my nose across the rings and studs lining her ear, wondering what I'd done to make her consider that. She curled her spine, hanging her head. I whispered quietly, kissing between her shoulder blades. "Nothing about you does."

She turned around in response and caught my chin in her hand, bringing her lips to mine in a gesture that was wonderfully assured again. As we kissed I pulled her back onto my lap, drawing a line from her jaw to the tip of her breast with my mouth, feeling her curving back on my palms and the vibration of her voice through the skin of her neck. Unable to resist, I let one of my hands slide lower, slip beneath the fabric there to that gorgeous backside, not at all shocked to find the skin smooth and firm as I'd imagined. The tiny startle that resulted made me grip her lightly.

The feel of the metal fascinated my tongue and fingers alike. She released a shuddering breath, her eyes held tightly shut, her hands pushing against my shoulders. I watched her as she had me, losing myself in the pleasure of this. When the need for more of her became overwhelming, I laid her down, keeping myself above her, noticing the way she trembled when my hair brushed along her abdomen.

Gently I nipped at the skin of her stomach, watching the flutter of muscle beneath. The last bit of clothing was taken slowly and an almost pained expression crossed her face. I wanted to ask if she was alright, but was concerned talking would only worsen her anxiety.

But looking at her completely bared… there was no choice… I had to touch her. The wonderment I felt at seeing her this way… as though I'd never laid eyes on anything similar… as if there were something fundamentally different about her… it was approaching nonsensical. I ran both hands up her thighs, caught by the shudder it caused, by the tension that filled her. Leaning down, I placed a gentle, open mouth kiss on the crease of her thigh, letting my lips follow the line of the joint there and she jerked as though my lips had burned her… scared her.

"Don't." I was stunned by her refusal but attempted to mask it as she squeezed her legs shut, bent her knees and rolled them away. I waited to recover myself, further distracted by the cutest behind I'd ever seen. I folded my arms over the hip that faced upward and kissed lightly at her ribs…pushing down the worry that was chasing each breath I took. The brush of my lips caused a slight tremor.

Show me how to love you…I found myself wishing to make the request of her body because I had the distinct impression her mind and mouth would steer me wrong. Natsuki was different in all ways thus far and so it should not have surprised me she would be complicated in this way as well.

"Did I hurt you?" I asked, knowing the answer.

I had not met a single woman, myself included, who did not enjoy that, but anything was possible. Some women were embarrassed by it… perhaps that was the issue… and perhaps not…my heart sank a bit. "No." It would be absolutely heartbreaking if I could not ever do that with her…

"Does it not feel good to you?" I probed, running a hand underneath and over her thigh… this was not something I could leave completely alone.

"Shizuru!" That gaze was entreating me to stop… too much.

"Kanin-na." I kissed her side. "I am simply curious," I commented quietly… very curious and if I was honest… concerned.

She was so anxious... made worse so by our talking. Oddly, it eased my own worries because I was so overcome with the need to soothe her. "Don't tease me about this."

I folded my arms onto her side, resting my chin there… a hand rubbing softly at her skin. "I would not, Natsuki. I very much wanted to." She moved fully onto her back, legs still closed and bent. Unease swirled in emerald and I wanted her to understand, wanted to believe what I said next was entirely true. "…but I would not do anything you do not want me to."

There was nothing but tense silence between us for what seemed like an eternity…her face taking on almost painful amounts of color. I could hear and see her swallow, irises darkening, locked on mine and I felt my own cheeks warm.

"I don't know if I can let you." It was uttered with seriousness and I stared, my eyes fixed on hers, on what was sitting inside them. I wondered if she meant ever or now… she was so apprehensive about this. I was not sure what to make of it and so I moved to kiss her lips and then each of her kneecaps, noticing her stiffen at the contact and I tilted my head, sitting back on my heels. That nervousness… it was worse than before.

I leaned forward and answered her with gentle lips and words spoken low. "There are many other things Natsuki…" My hand rested on her legs, my palm running over her shin, slipping to her calf… and her body was winding taut again, not relaxing in the slightest.

As much as I wanted to touch her, be with her, as overwhelming as those feelings were…I did not want it to be like this… not with her at the edge of retreat. I wanted her pleasure… I wanted to be able to give her that. With one last kiss to her knee, I stood up… thinking for a moment on what to do, trying to ignore her gaze as it crawled along my body because that look made me want to climb right back into bed with her. Instead, I walked over to the floor lamp that stood on the other side of the room. I tapped it, and then twice more to dim it. If she wanted darkness, perhaps it would calm her to have less light…a compromise. Maybe it would dull the strain she felt… make her feel less exposed.

She slowly used her forearms to lift her upper body, observing me with searching eyes. "What are you doing?"

I only smiled at her, walking back over slowly… to steady myself rather than for effect though it did seem to have some…flipping the switch she'd reached for. The softer, dim light changed the color of her in the most wonderful ways. As long as I could still see her face, her eyes, her body, as long as there was enough light for it I could be satisfied. If what she needed was ambiance, it was easy enough. She gazed at me and I smiled as I leaned over, letting the backs of my fingers trail across her cheek… letting my thumb rest on a lower lip that I was falling in love with. I consciously gentled my face, tried to open it as she looked up at me… examining eyes tinged with what I now recognized as desire… and something else… something lost. It was a look I'd only seen for the briefest of moments when she came to me that night after the funeral…

It made my chest constrict when she wrapped a small hand loosely over my wrist, kissed it. She was frowning, eyebrows drawn tight together, hand holding mine a bit more firmly as she gathered herself. "Shizuru. I'm not good at this part. I…"

I pressed a hand to her mouth. Was that really what she thought? Was that why she was so hesitant to allow me this? Her hand was at one of her earrings and I reached over… moved it away and began to take them out… softly clattering metal in my palm. I'd watched her take them out a few times by now, understood most of their fastenings. Neither of us spoke as I placed them on the nightstand in a small plate that sat there for my own jewelry, her watch was already sitting inside it. Only the stud in her nose and the newly unveiled piercings remained.

I laid myself beside her and she cautiously slid down the mattress, following me on instinct. There was a sense I got from her as we gazed at one another, that my turning off the lights, slowing down… that it had settled her somewhat, elevated her trust in me. My palm… I placed it on her stomach as she had done to me and she looked down at it. I could see she was trying not to cover herself… that she quite desperately wanted to, but the smooth tracks and firm presses of my fingers as I let them know the shape of her… they seemed to help pull her attention away from her nakedness. One hand was all I let myself have for now… touch limited to a single point of contact and I was fascinated by the gentle changes… ridges of bone… soft skin… the firmness of muscle… the ladder of her ribs and the tensing… it became less and less. My lips joined… selective kisses for bits of her I found particularly irresistible and her eyes clenched shut, the tightness of them easing with each touch of my mouth. Holding myself just above her I let my lips follow the curves of her neck again, shoulders, jaw. I did not know what it was that drove any of my actions... only that I wanted to try and alleviate that fear for her, only that I wanted this to be anywhere near our nights together… to approach what our talks were for me…for it to mean that much. It felt a long overdue reversal of our roles… for me to be the more confident of us two, to steer this.

Bringing my hand up, I drew the backs of my fingers along her temple and cheek, not entirely sure why… it felt the right thing to do. With all the tenderness I felt for her, I used the other to push her hair behind her now bare ear. Eyes opened, as she turned on her side and I moved us closer with an arm across her back. We both drew in a breath as our naked skin met, a hitched gasp at the subtle friction of us against each other. I fell into our kisses quickly, the feel of her hands forcing us closer still, her silken hair on my fingertips. She was covering herself with me, clothing herself in my skin… and I could not say that I minded at all. The tangle of our legs made my eyelids flutter, made me reach for a thigh that was firm and feminine, drawing it steadily over my own. This was already so much more promising than our start before and I felt my mind relax again. I would die happily, I decided, with chests pushing against each other as we breathed, the scent and warmth of her…the two of us like this.

We kissed for long enough that she forgot to hold in her body's interest in this. The press of our mouths with both of us bare and flush against one another… it made me wish that skin could melt… that there was some way we could get even closer than we were. Like this, it was already so much more than it should have been. I slowed myself deliberately when I wanted to move faster… gentled myself when I wanted to push and firmed my touches so as not to tickle. Her rhythm… when it started against me it grabbed at my focus constantly, and I could not help but match it, hold her tighter and swallow down both our sighs as they ghosted over our lips. A new breed of passion was rising in me… as much about her face, her eyes, the pressure in my chest when our gazes met as the physical response of my body… something beyond excitement… outside of it.

When I did move things further, it was to slide my hand down her stomach and over her completely … the heat of her setting off an answering burst in my own body. I lifted my eyes to a pair that were clouded, lips that were parted.

I watched her face carefully as I glided my fingers along her, not inside. The build-up was slow enough to drive both us mad, I was succumbing to it already… because she was rolling her hips and breathing in the most sensual fashion I had ever witnessed as I touched her again, with only slightly more pressure. It mimicked the manner that I tended to speak to her. Teasing fingertips… because I found myself taking pleasure in her reactions to this as well. Still, it took every ounce of self-control I possessed to maintain this pace… a need to prove that I could and I centered myself by kissing her. Even in those, she seemed to be able to communicate everything she felt… shaky inhales and nips when it became intense … dragging lips when it was a steady, subtle type of pleasure…

I slipped down her body so I could kiss her breast …still getting accustomed to the unusual feel of the piercings. One of those delightfully low, quiet little moans tumbled out and wandered over my skin. Her hand raised and I felt it tentatively weave itself into my hair… my own breathing was affected by this now and as she pulled in broken breath after broken breath, features drawing tighter together, I held my own. Her responsiveness fanned the embers still living in the pit of my stomach. The way those reactions seemed to paint themselves all over her… her body, her voice, her eyes… it kindled them. We turned, her on her back… her abdomen tightening, arms reaching behind her, tensing fists pushing on the crown of her head, forearms hiding most of her face… only lips and perfect white teeth exposed now.

The unpredictable exhales that made her chest and stomach heave…if I could draw that last bit of anxiousness out with my lips, take it into me such that she could fully relax, I would have. Trails beneath her breasts and across her sides would have to do… and maybe I could somehow spread what I felt across her skin instead, quiet the tension that way. I let myself feel the full strength of my emotions when I touched her… hoping it would help me make this what I wanted it to be. Muscles wound like springs beneath my kisses… clenching and releasing as I followed the slopes of her ribs and stomach, followed along her right hipbone as it rose and fell in sensuous pace with my hand. I kept both myself and her from anything more for as long as I could stand to… because the way she tightened, the way she curled… it was changing, becoming response rather than defense.

The sight of those sharp points of bone, muscles firing beneath skin knocked me past the edge of my patience. A stifled cry rasped from her as I finally pushed this further, pushed into her and her flesh broke out in tiny bumps, hairs standing on end… I felt it everywhere our bodies met. Her breath caught in gorgeous little bursts of sound, her entire body tensing… all of it repeating each time I pressed into her. I took a moment to close my eyes and concentrate on the feel of her. A moment to simply watch…and my heart sped. Small noises of pleasure escaped me now because there were simply too many to catch. A moment to kiss her stomach… because to finally have her this way and with everything dragged out, prolonged with a deliberateness that stressed me… it tied my senses into a bundle and wrung them out. She was absolutely exquisite to touch… …the sounds she made and the heat of her and I could not imagine what it was she'd deemed herself 'not good at'.

Her abdomen rocked against my lips as she moved and I followed. She was pressing the quivering, rolling flesh of her stomach against my mouth over and over. With her hips churning… the scent of her this close… the bit of salt gathering on her skin…the wildness in me returned. My desires flared again, muddling themselves with my feelings and I wanted to slip just a bit lower, to taste more and the strength of it was nearly pulling me down. My forehead fell to her stomach, the arm I was supporting myself with pushing into the sheets, entrenching itself against my dying restraint. I wanted to despite her refusal and my weakening hold on myself did nothing to help me. My mind betrayed me, transferred its focus from what was already blissful. It sang that there was something in the way she responded… that she might enjoy what I wished to do if she could allow herself… and she had not said 'no' exactly. A particularly strong push of her hips broke me.

"Please, Natsuki…" I whispered against her skin before I could check myself… voice strained by the rawness of my desires… almost unrecognizable. Her gaze was hazy as she moved her arms to peer down at me. My soft kisses stopped just shy of where I wished them to be, and her legs hardened with stored retreat. "…can you not let me try?"

Her eyes widened, flickering like an animal cornered. I knew this would push her and I was anxious, incredibly so, perhaps as much as she was, but she did not pull away this time, did not stop the motion of her hips against my hand. My lips continued to move on her skin. A kiss to the inside of her tightened thighs, which drew a sharp exhale… a plea whispered there, which caused her eyes to snap shut. I had given up control to the want inside me and perhaps I had lied… perhaps I would do something I could not be sure she wanted me to. When a touch of something else broke through her trepidation, gaze falling down to mine… her legs readjusted, allowed me in. Acceptance, it crashed over me, relieved my worries and there was no resistance left in me. I slowed my hand as I moved myself, watching her eyes the entire time. She cringed when my breath hit sensitive skin and I'd not even touched her… a small pullback, away... green darkening. That unsettled look was one I understood… having lost myself to her earlier. It was something that had to be given, control relinquished… but I intended to do my utmost in reassuring her that I could be trusted with such a thing. I had never been with a woman whose body was quite so sensitive before. It must've only added to the vulnerability she felt…

I waited with bated breath… afraid she might stop me before I had started. I held my air as I wet my bottom lip and leaned forward, let it brush across her. Hips trembled but did not jerk away this time, her breathing staggered. I let my free arm curl beneath her thigh, holding her but not tightly… not on top, not holding her down. Those lithe legs, the muscles there… they were shuddering deliciously against my arm already, toes digging themselves into the mattress. I took a focused breath in an attempt to ground myself… feeling for the first time in such a situation, that I might be in over my head. I was unseated alongside her because the strangest thought was knocking about in my brain, that doing this with her… to her… it might be more than I would know what to do with. It was not something I'd ever felt before, but the sounds she made as I loved her this way… watching every response… captured by the visible intensity of what she was feeling… these things kept sprinting away with my consciousness. Primal and feminine noises were cut to pieces by her uneven exhales… they dove beneath my skin and attached themselves firmly to nerve endings. Scorching reverberations that burned into my memory, burned across my abdomen. The hands that had just fallen away from her face, they were searching, shaking and looking for a resting place… gripped her hair and then the pillow behind her. Muscles tightened to spasticity made her legs shake constantly… and the air in her lungs seemed to run from her…

I had to hold onto her now, drew the thigh I was holding over my shoulder, to rest on my back because her movements were so sudden, the tremors beyond her control. I felt an alarmingly strong pang of arousal grip me as I watched her watching me. She kept looking down the length of her torso with her bright green, uncertain eyes, just those eyes… deep and so very expressive… they spurred me on, galvanized me even as they undid me. How anyone had ever let her go, how anyone had survived it, I could not understand. The shallow, higher-pitched gasps that accompanied the quivering… they were so unlike what I knew of her, so girlish… heart-achingly beautiful. I let my lids fall for a moment because she was simply too much for all of my senses.

Time and my body both… they seemed to swell and snap back unpredictably, enmeshed in the impossible, yet undeniable parallelism of touch and feeling that existed between us. It forced my own excitement to the point that my body seemed to dissipate, to dissolve into the feeling of her on my tongue and fingertips…the sensations running almost unbearably hot… becoming all that I could think or feel, lifting me off the earth, and dropping me back down in time with the rise and fall of her body. I felt such a delicious pleasure in her pleasure and it just went on until a hoarse cry left her throat and her body wrenched almost violently. The strength of it lifted her, twisted her away, onto her side, clenching her thighs together, drawing them toward her chest. Her arms wrapped around her middle, gripping her sides, fingers curling rhythmically as a heaving, broken breath racked her frame. I watched for a moment … stunned and then carefully, I moved behind her…pulled her to me.

She shivered again and exhaled loudly through her mouth, whistling air that shook and shuddered through her entire body. She passed her arms over my own, holding them to her chest. I could feel the insane pounding beneath my hands…

"…I…that…" Another round of less intense shaking followed those rasped words and I could not begin to imagine how she planned to finish any those sentences. "shit…"

I reached down to pull a sheet over us and I ran my fingers through her hair. "Natsuki…" I rested lips against her shoulder, trying to hold in my own fear. "Are you alright?"

After another moment to gather herself, she lifted her torso on her arms, staring off to the side, her eyebrows drawn together. "I..." She stopped, leaving the thought at one word again… and I did not know where we stood.

Reaching my hand out, I held her cheek… her wide eyes meeting mine as a small twitch of a half-smile formed. It was a good sign, I thought and I smiled back at her. "Ookini."

Confusion filled her gaze, more than was already there. "For what?"

My eyes gentled as she leaned into my palm… absolutely adorable. "For letting me."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't thank me for that! It should be the other way arou… " That was so much better, even if she had been overwhelmed with embarrassment and flopped onto her back. I could feel myself grinning at those quiet words. An arm was flung over her pink face. "Damn it. I still don't know why I try to talk."

I touched her shoulder gently, rubbing… pressing my mouth there. "And I am still glad that you do." It had the desired effect and she rolled back over, resting against me, arm across my stomach now, warm air on my neck and shoulders.

I closed my eyes to concentrate on the feeling. My mind fatigued itself further by attempting to understand what it was that felt like water in my lungs. It was unusual for me to feel emotional after this type of activity… more unusual for me to feel what I had during… but she could, always did change my experience of things…even things that I was entirely familiar with. I expected the calm contented sleepiness, the unmatched lightness I'd felt after she'd touched me. Instead, there was a straining sensation in my chest… as though something was trying to break free… feelings I'd promised release after this, but the conditions were not fully met. I'd not woken up beside her… she'd not had time to process what had happened. I wondered how she felt in this moment… because she seemed alternately distant and connected as she rested against me.

I pulled back a bit so that I could see her and her eyes met mine. The fingers of my left hand fell to her kiss-swollen lips. Leaning forward, she moved as though to press them to mine, but paused with an expression of uncertainty. It took me a moment to realize her aversion was due to where my mouth had been. I had to smile at that. She paused and I moved forward, stealing a kiss… a quick one. There was an expression of shock on her face briefly before it fell into its more common neutral arrangement, but there was something… as though she were still not completely settled, as though something in this had shaken her… it was peeking from beneath her gaze. The bits of fear that stayed inside me responded to it and I could not look away, could not let her out of my sight even as tiredness overtook me.

It was some hours later, that I felt myself slipping out of a comfortable sleep. When I opened my eyes, she was not beside me… and again I felt my heart tumble into my stomach until my gaze fell past the empty expanse and over to the window. She was sitting beside it, the shirt she had on before hanging loosely over her, buttons still undone, sleeves rolled, hair pulled up loosely …and staring out into the dark. Despite my nervousness, I could not help but notice how attractive she was… notice how beautiful her legs were… skin all grayness and smooth lines in the near darkness. The lamp was off now.

It was deliberate, my movement beneath the covers… to draw her attention because I did not want to scare her, even if I was uncomfortable myself. Her head turned slowly, a questioning glance. "Shizuru?" Said so quietly… perhaps she was unsure if I'd woken or shifted.

"Can you not sleep?" I asked gently… my voice a bit rough as it struggled from the grip of slumber. My mind though… it was already up and running circles around me. The fear that she would run when we did this… hate me… it would not leave. I wanted it to go away… and I'd held some foolish hope that my remaining doubts would dissolve in the haze of our love-making. There was no reason to think that such a thing would happen, that she would run … but I had made connections between sex and feeling and emotional catastrophe that seemed immune to reason. Now that I was not pleasantly immersed in the thick of it… these worries returned.

"No." She moved her hair, pulled at the lobe of her ear. There was such a delicate look to that bit of her without its usual metal adornments…

I sat up and she lowered her eyes, but still, they kept peeking from over her arm… a peek and then a guilty look as she realized I was naked and she was looking. I would spare her then and put on a robe. I sat at the end of the bench, beside her feet, folding my hands. "Is something troubling you?"

Her eyes closed slowly. It was a while before she spoke. "Not really." She murmured, fingers tapping her knees.

"But you cannot sleep?" I asked even though it was obvious. She shook her head. It was my turn to take my time with responding because I did not want to say what I thought was true… but it had to be asked. "Is it because of tonight, I wonder?"

Her brow crinkled and my face fell. What was it in the way that I did this that to others that caused this? I looked at her, unable to hide the hurt I felt. "Shizuru…" She stopped and my heartbeat did as well. Her hand was on my face and it only amplified what I was feeling.

"That you would be unable to sleep makes me think we have something to discuss." I attempted to project composure, but it was so very difficult and I was certain I'd failed. My mind was already constructing the accusations that would lunge from her lips… earmarking all the missteps I'd made tonight.

A rough sigh. "What you did to me…" I felt myself begin to loosen at the edge, my thoughts untying me… ripping at the changes I'd already allowed. This had all been for what then? Why? This same thing all over again… I'd forced this… I'd forced something she'd said no to… I'd let what I wanted take over and waiting for her had made no difference because in the end, I'd still done what I wanted anyway. Her hand on my face pulled me out of my panic as it turned me. Her eyes were swimming with alarm. "Oi, what is going on in your head?"

I could not pull any coldness, any ounce of protection because the intensity of what I felt was searing my insides. "I am more concerned for what is going on in yours."

Her head fell back against the wall behind her. Her jaw shifted and she paused. "I didn't think it would be like that."

Was it disappointing to her? Frightening? Disturbing? I did not understand and my chest felt so tight that breathing was next to impossible. "If you cannot do this… if that was too much for you…"

I did not know whether it was my voice or my tone, but something grabbed her and she grabbed me in turn… a hand again at my cheek, another on my neck, gaze firm. "Tell me what you're worried about before I make this worse."

"It is not that I am worried."

She shook her head, frowning and raising an eyebrow. "Yes, it is."

Closing my eyes, I let the words out… a fear that felt monstrous spoken aloud. "Do you regret it Natsuki?"

"No." The answer was quick and sure and she held my eyes until she found whatever it is she was seeking. I was embarrassed by my own insecurities… they kept having their way with me. Her hands slipped away. "I don't."

It was an improvement from my initial understanding… but it was still confusing to me. I held my elbows against my discomfort. "Did I push you?" I said it quietly… terrified of the answer… was it coercion?

Tense moments passed and I tried to still myself, to pull some composure back, a bit of covering against a conversation I was terrified to have. "I thought… I was screwed up that way I guess. I couldn't feel it right… not like you're supposed to. I accepted that." Such a quiet voice she was using and I tried to decipher her words… it was not at all the direction I'd feared she would take.

There were so many questions that came to me as I processed that it was difficult to determine which was the right one to ask. I chose the one that made me the most curious. "Was it not enjoyable for you before?"

"It wasn't bad or anything. It was okay." It was not a rousing endorsement certainly, but not the worst she could have said either. "It was me though, not him." She released an aggravated sigh. "I told you I'm not good at that part."

Perhaps hers was more extreme than other cases, but nervousness was not a unique problem. "That is not my experience of you." She could not look at me as I said that to her, but I expected such a reaction. "And nervousness is not so uncommon a thing."

Again, she was quiet for a few moments. "You're comfortable with it." I did not know why that was. I had always been fairly comfortable with sex and bared skin and flirtation. It was who I wished it to be with that had plagued me afterward, not the ease I felt with such acts.

"In that respect, I am more the exception than the rule I think." That was the truth.

"I can't get my head around it."

Did she not understand how I could be comfortable with it? "I believe it is just a condition of my nature, Natsuki."

I felt my head dip at her slightly frustrated sigh. "That's not what I'm talking about." A deep breath and I wanted to close my eyes, shrink myself and crawl inside her mind such that this torturously gradual pulling of information would not be necessary… not for either of us. "Tonight…" Still…watching her struggle was decidedly worse than struggling myself. "It was just a lot."

"Was it too much?" It was a question asked quietly. I waited, a small amount of anxiety pricking at me.

"Shizuru, it wasn't and I'm not sorry we did it." Her head rolled to the side, face tense. After another moment her words began to spill out. "But Jesus, I don't know my own body when I'm with you. I don't know a goddamn thing when you touch me." Emerald turned toward me seeking something, but this conversation had blind-sided me… the outpouring of feelings I did not know she had. "I don't have sex like we just had. I don't feel what you make me feel." Her head tipped down, she shook it and me when she whispered the last part. "And then all you did was ask and your eyes are so damn beautiful and that's not a reason for anything." Such conviction in her tone and there were so many emotions coming from her, mixing and difficult to pull apart, but they were holding me already. They resonated in the way that things do when it is not the words that are used but what lies beneath them that speaks. "It's not something I ever wanted before."

"You did tonight?" I said as gently as I could… but it was difficult to communicate with any coherence let alone eloquence. The things she was saying…the things that I was feeling…

She nodded. "You keep doing it too."

"… what do I keep doing?" I was almost afraid to ask because I was not certain how much more my heart could stand. Her words had already captured it completely.

"You take these things that I know and you just…" A hand to her mouth, pinching her lip briefly. "Blow through them like their goddamn air and it's not like I even want you to stop." A heavy sigh, as she turned her face to mine, mouth a straight line. "I'm not explaining right."

I still had no response except to touch her… to cup her cheek and place a kiss on the other… to rest my forehead against hers… contact… connection. To be without pretty words… some semblance of charm was disconcerting, but pretty words only said so much. Hers had been more than adequate, romantic to me because of their rough brand of honesty and it was still a bit strange to think she meant them for me.

A kiss on her beautiful lips because I had never felt that I so clearly understood another person… never felt such synchronicity as I did at that moment.

"I can understand..." Another kiss and another because it was always a challenge to not reach for just one more. "Because that shuttle ride, Natsuki… the truth is that I have not been able to fully steady myself since."

"It's a good thing." A statement, not a question this time.

My softest smile. "A very good thing." Her eyes were so intense as they met mine and I kissed her to escape what it stirred inside me.

The elusive epiphany that had been skipping at the edge of my mind since we agreed to try this was finally illuminated. Natsuki was thoroughly incapable of telling me what I wanted to hear, had no use for such things…what was proper… unless she happened to feel it. What she did feel was often more helpful and healing than what I would have wanted anyway. I'd spent so many years bathing in white lies and half-truths and hidden things. When we were together, I drank her realness down like water…loving her the more for it. She did not fall under any spell in my presence… was not ashamed of her feelings or mine. She listened and offered honest opinions, voiced her disagreement, was so thoroughly opposite to what I knew of life and how to live it.

A part of what made me fall for her in the first place was her ability to treat me as though I were just another person. She had the confidence to make us equal and had never thought of us as anything but… had the confidence to insist I did as well. Together we were two people, relating with little pretense, with little between us…openness and acceptance as is. That experience… what it was in the context of my life was not one I could begin to voice the profundity of. To hear what she said… that I was able to make her feel something that she had thought was possible for her… it bridged the divide between my hopes and my emotions… allowed them to really touch for the first time.

"…will you not come to bed now?"

She stood and climbed beneath the covers. In a show of solidarity, I kept my robe on. There was no indication of nervousness as I moved in beside her and I left my arms open, a soft smile on my lips… but she did not come into them. Instead, she faced me... us laying on opposite sides of our bodies. Green eyes in the darkness and her hand took mine … more silent secrets as she placed a kiss on my wrist… continued to watch me as though trying to unlock some mystery… sleepiness taking hold of her as I could feel it doing with me.

It gave me a rare bit of hope that she could speak words such as the ones she'd spoken…made me think maybe I could keep something this beautiful. My earlier concerns over how to tell her that I loved her, if I should, when I should, what I needed first ... they became suddenly unimportant. Perhaps questions of worth, of what was deserved, flaws and morality… they were insecurities needlessly injected into something whole in its own right. To have this with her, to have these feelings inside me even if the strength of them was a little much at times… even if they had not been outwardly named... to have them shared… to have met someone at all who could settle me as she did, reach me and comfort me and understand that which I feared in myself … it was not a thing to be questioned and picked apart and filtered through my own anxiety… it was a thing to be grateful for. To find in another person, some touch of peace in myself… it was more than I had ever hoped for, let alone that I'd been able to return it to her in some small measure. It did not matter that the parts of us that required mending were opposite… the feeling was pure sameness. My comfort with sensuality against my resistance to realness and her…my perfect inversion…

What I'd felt before this... when we first agreed to try… my uncertainty, self-doubt, shame… they were bits of peeling paint now, even if it was layers thick. I was relearning to live with pieces of newly bared skin, learning to reconcile my own thoughts with hers, with my fathers, learning to let what was there fall away… trying to stop holding onto the pieces I thought I needed. Though it was excruciating at times… unsettling nearly all the time… tonight… a hands length away from this woman, I wanted nothing else, felt that I could see truth from lies… real from illusion. The two of us sharing the same patch of earth, it was a most precious thing… in it, I was fulfilled.

Digression #29: Kuga Natsuki
Date: May 25th, 2014 … a Sunday

There was a part of her that wondered at their relationship because Natsuki had always disliked people who weren't upfront. Shizuru though… her reasons were different. She did flirt with her, way too boldly sometimes, but they were honest flirts, things that came from truth, which was different than being told sweet nothings, lies to reel you in. The conversations they had, the things they spoke about… there was truth there too. Shizuru didn't want her to change, didn't dislike any of the bits of her personality that so many other people found unappealing, the walls she put up. It was unusual for Natsuki to have the fact that she wasn't good at speaking her feelings not really get in the way. Her girlfriend… a new thought, still unusual to her, but accurate… could make her feel like there was no other place she'd rather be than beside her, with a look, a touch. Natsuki found something in her presence, something comforting… something worth seeking.

Dealing with Shizuru broken, upset, in such a dark place … it hadn't changed any of what she felt, only added pieces to the picture she had of a woman she realized wasn't only what she seemed… an incredibly complex person. Outside of that, Natsuki hadn't met many people who were anything other than completely straight… as far as she was aware anyway… which admittedly was deliberately not very far. Shizuru was the only gay person she'd ever gotten very close to. To realize that the woman was even a little ashamed of it, thought that feeling that way was wrong… it bothered her, more than she would have guessed. Intellectually she knew a lot of people thought like that, but it was far enough away from her that she didn't care… could easily ignore it. The topic fell into the wide pool of things that previously had no impact on her life and she thusly didn't think on. Asked her opinion, Natsuki would have said that shaming a person over such a thing was unequivocally prejudiced and inherently wrong, but she herself was never concerned enough about anyone else's sexuality to worry over it. Now it was there though, in her face, up close… and as it happened with so many experiences in her life, when it touched her on a personal level, it changed her indifference to indignation.

She wondered if all of this applied to her as well now. She had to be either gay or bisexual logically speaking, didn't she? Was it Shizuru or was she always that way? Had she just been dating the wrong gender all her life? If that was true, shouldn't there have been some sign or something? Was that what was missing between her and Tate? If Tate was a girl… she'd stopped the thought immediately, it was way too weird. They were unanswerable questions and honestly… when she was with Shizuru, it didn't matter. The truth of it was that Natsuki didn't care about what she was outside of that… didn't care, because as far as she could see it changed nothing to give it a name. If she was sleeping with Shizuru, loved Shizuru, was happy with Shizuru, a label made no difference. Mai didn't care, Alyssa didn't care, and Nao… she never gave a shit about anything. It was just another weapon in her arsenal of teases. Sakomizu should probably be told at some point… but she was pretty sure he'd be okay with it even if it took awhile. It occurred to her that maybe that kind of thing, having everyone be okay was lucky, that she was fortunate… or maybe she was careful in who she chose to be close with. That wasn't fair though… Shizuru hadn't had a choice in her parents. All of that aside, what concerned her most was that she didn't know what to do with the other woman's pain. Natsuki did not consider herself a nurturing person… she was never the person who said the right thing, but Shizuru was okay when it was the two of them, happy as she was, real and that was what mattered. They could work on it. They could surround themselves with people who didn't think like that, they already had… and maybe, eventually, it would wipe it away.

When she'd said 'no', when they'd sat beside each other on that wall, it was because she was scared and never a question of what she actually felt. When she'd said 'I can't'... she meant try the relationship, not love a woman. That had never really troubled her, definitely surprised her, maybe a bit more than surprised her...but not troubled her. At the time it was more that she'd gotten caught up in the circling thought that she'd make the same mistake she did with Tate, that they'd try to be more and it would fall apart. Shizuru would be gone and that stuff she felt when she was with her, that thing that made her want to stay up all night just to look at her, to talk to her, whatever crazy thing she'd found in the other woman would disappear in a puff of smoke. She'd be alone, drowning in the darkness with the feeling of having lost something absolutely irreplaceable. It would be like flying off that cliff or waking up from her coma that night or realizing her mother was gone or watching Tate walk away. The week that followed, where Shizuru was gone, it was exactly that. She needed Nao, needed Mai to kick her ass a little bit… but beneath her hard-headedness, she knew. Maybe she knew because it was different from the start and those two nights afterward... after she found Shizuru in that nook... they were rare things. It meant something about the two of them, she was sure of that much.

All the wondering about how she'd know, how she could know if she could even experience love… it fell away in the months that followed that night in the nook. She couldn't really say why, or when… but it was there… that thing people talked about… it was inside her jumping excitedly every time she saw Shizuru, was close to her. She just knew she loved Shizuru, even if she did have a lewd sense of humor, even if she was a little devilish at times, even if she had a way of loving that was very intense, even if she flirted with people, even if her ways of thinking were somewhat unusual, even if she hadn't been able to say those words yet. Natsuki meant what she'd said to her… she didn't want perfect, not from anyone. The woman she loved was also so many good things… so many good things that she didn't really seem to see herself.

Natsuki had spent a lot of time trying to understand the difference between the two people she'd been with. It wasn't that Tate couldn't kiss. It wasn't that Tate was incapable of or unskilled at doing any of the same things by comparison… it just felt different. The only thing that even could come close to explaining it was the taste of food after vigorous exercising versus the taste of food normally… how different an apple could taste when biology kicked in and your body needed it, and somehow that comparison just felt so wrong. There were also tactile things…Shizuru was softer… that softness kept jumping out at her. Every time she touched her, ran fingers over her stomach… new adjectives came for that smooth, delicate feeling skin. Shizuru's body… it surprised Natsuki how much she liked it … curvier hips, a fuller chest… a definitively womanly body by any standard. There were other things as well… a difference in personality. Shizuru was much more willing to push her … test her, tease her. She wondered if she needed it despite the fact a part of her pushed back, was annoyed by it at times because left to her own devices she tended to retreat into her isolated little bubble. Tate and she had their own bubbles and they were perfectly comfortable sitting side-by-side in their individual but similar comfort zones. Shizuru though, she had simply climbed inside Natsuki's invisible barrier, smiling as though she'd done nothing out of the ordinary. Then there was that oncoming rush of feeling that was so entirely new… and the heat she felt after they kissed.

Weirder than falling in love was wanting someone else, and god… did she want Shizuru. That woman could kiss… could make pinpoints of lightning race down her spine and destroy her completely. It turned her to mush sometimes. Shizuru didn't let her get away with the peck of a kiss that she gravitated toward either… when they kissed they kissed. Desire and response melting into each other…it didn't have to be deep, but she had to commit to it.

Making friends with the sexual side of herself was an ongoing struggle. Once unleashed by their first night together, maybe before that if she felt like being completely honest… since the kiss in the office… since that stupid plum…it had been untamable and very persistent. A savage thing that now lived inside her, pushing and pulling and forcing its way to the surface. It could steal her mind like nothing else had except unearthing the truth about her mother. Minutes could slip away, lost forever and she didn't notice because she was so inside her own head with it. This was less like a consuming drive though and more like a best friend who laughed way too loudly in public. Natsuki was always embarrassedly trying to hush it, quiet it… annoyed that it couldn't seem to keep itself under control. The thoughts she had about Shizuru sometimes… she offended herself with them.

A lot of it was curiosity…that was what she'd decided to call it. Those stupid little thoughts that came to her…if seeing another woman naked would be that different, them having all the same parts, to begin with… if the noises that Shizuru made would carry that Kyoto-ben still... and in her strangest moment, what those lips would feel like when they dragged over her breast as they had that plum. Many of these musings brought a blush to her face that she couldn't explain to whoever was around her at the time. She had to think on her feet, a quick lie… which she had no skill with and often the exchange ended with a look of amused skepticism on the face of whoever she was trying to persuade.

Shizuru had been holding herself back before their first time. It was like watching a horse being broken… all wild eyes and spirit and then submission. She had needed liquid courage to take the first step and that backfired terribly. That look Shizuru had given her when things were getting out of hand that night... like she afraid, it had stopped her and then... she just didn't know. When she woke up between breasts that kept popping into her mind at the least opportune moments, she'd still been confused over the night before, her own behavior, Shizuru's response... and she kinda flipped out. The only upside was that she'd figured out how to use the espresso machine Shizuru had brought over. The downside was much more profound… that her girlfriend seemed a woman defeated by her desire, ashamed of it… somehow took this thing and made it some sort of failing on her part that Natsuki had gotten drunk and decided to open her shirt with her teeth. That was an impressive inversion of reality, even if she'd done that bizarrely hypnotizing thing to her finger beforehand. As much as she was starting to ache for the woman, she was also scared out of her mind at the thought of actually allowing Shizuru to reciprocate. She was sure that her girlfriend had realized that too… as perceptive as she was, maybe not that exactly… but that she was nervous at least.

After reading that letter it was all she could think of, each withdrawal, each pushing back of the want Natsuki could feel in her girlfriend's hands, in her lips… see in her eyes. That Shizuru would constrain herself to such an extent because of her, it took away most of the discomfort she felt about being desired in the first place, about the newness of her own wants and substituted it with a new discomfort. Natsuki didn't want to be another reason for Shizuru to hide herself, to erect some new box to shove herself inside… a person who did not need the sexual dimension in their relationship until Natsuki could give it to her with confidence. It was true to neither of them… because sensuality and sex were important to Shizuru. They were a part of her… one of the first things she made clear when Natsuki confessed her feelings. For her own part, she knew she could never come into a sexual situation totally comfortable… definitely not the first time. One thing Natsuki was beginning to understand about Shizuru was that she was exceptionally skilled at setting herself up to fail, to feel guilty… even when it appeared to the outside world that she was succeeding. Reading that letter, she had so many thoughts she could not articulate. That one section…

'He let you learn to constrain yourself to the point of bursting and call that unavoidable release a failure of self-control. A person such as yourself, a creature of passion, cannot live that way. The expression of real emotion cannot be made only at breaking point.'

It stayed with her beyond her anger. The lack of distinction between that which could be called self-control and that which was a limit… every person has limits… concerned her. To make a limit a failure… it meant you spent your life failing. It was no wonder the woman felt the way she did. If she defined self-control as infinite patience, infinite composure, infinite calm under pressure, infinite capacity to deal with emotion… no one had it. Natsuki certainly didn't, she knew her own limits… at least in some ways… maybe not physically. Her patience was short… her composure dependant on her company… calm under pressure she had… an impressive capacity to deal with emotion… not so much. The whole thing was a defeatist system… and Natsuki did not know whether Shizuru recognized that. What she did know though, or what she thought was probably true, was that the woman had somehow, between when they started and when they first slept together, decided that giving in to her sexual desires was a failure of self-control as well. It meant one thing… that Natsuki would have to initiate. A giant leap outside her comfort zone…

On the beach, that shaking voice… the sound that came from her lips… something so real after so much avoidance… it was the last straw. She didn't want it to be outside though, on some rock where more noises like that would need to be muffled… she wanted this in private, in a space that was theirs. Natsuki had insisted on touching the other woman first because she had more confidence with that, wasn't as intimidated by it… and because she thought Shizuru needed it. Their first time together was to be the closest to seduction she'd ever attempted. She had thought it over on the car ride back to Shizuru's house… been so itchy with her thoughts that she demanded to take a shower. The truth was that she needed a minute because she wanted it to be a little romantic or sexy for the other woman's sake, but knew that was reaching. It hadn't surprised her when seduction turned out to be essentially telling Shizuru to shut up and taking off her clothes for her. It sounded about right in retrospect… know your limits. It was even a little funny because it had definitely worked… accomplished what it was meant to despite its lack of subtlety.

There were a few reasons she could have given for her nervousness beforehand. Number one was that sex was never something she considered herself good at… well... receiving it anyway, the giving she saw as fairly straightforward. Part and parcel of that particular issue was that she was 100% convinced Shizuru would know exactly what she was doing. Number two was how the hell to explain the sensitivity level of her body, how to explain something she wasn't sure how to deal with herself. Number three was the nipple piercings… no one had ever seen them besides Tate. She liked them of course or she wouldn't have gotten them. They'd taken a little getting used to for him, but he was as good about it as he was everything else… they just knew each other well enough that she could tell without him saying that he would've rather she didn't have them. What if Shizuru hated them? What if she hated the tattoo that now covered most of her back? It would piss her off because it shouldn't matter and it would hurt her anyway. She could admit that even if the inherent contradiction was irritating. How the hell did you bring those kinds of things up in a conversation anyway? She should have just said it at the bar that night, gotten it out of the way, but she already felt weird about having brought her brief adventure in tongue piercings into the conversation.

None of her reasons stuck though, not when Shizuru and her actually had sex for the first time. She was a mess about being touched, had a hard time letting it happen, just like she always did… couldn't figure out what to do with herself, yet the woman had no reservations about it, with her tattoos or her piercings, with anything. What stuck out to her, bounced in her head for days after was the fact that Shizuru had never looked at her like the fact she was so uncomfortable about being touched upset her, didn't take it personally… was patient and insistent at the same time. Maybe she needed that too because Natsuki had no answers. She'd labeled it as something that could not be fixed... something native to her character, no longer a "problem" but a fact. It hadn't occurred to her that Shizuru might be able to help… but maybe it should have. That was… God… she still couldn't wrap her mind around it… that she let her do that. She'd never even let Tate try it… always refused him. She'd refused her at first, but then those eyes and that voice and her slow building touch that felt so good… she couldn't say no. The notion that such things could convince her was unsettling even now. She'd always been resistant to the idea of letting anyone do that… to allowing such focused, unreciprocated attention on her too responsive body. At the moment, it had done something indescribable to her… looking down her stomach and seeing Shizuru's distinctive eyes watching, framed by her own thighs… to feel the strength of her want in every touch and kiss. She still couldn't think about it without getting completely, annoyingly flustered. In the barrage of sensory experiences that kept returning to her, were a few more that stood out. Touching a woman in lingerie, seeing another woman in lingerie…. why had it never occurred to her that might be something she'd like? Probably for the same elusive reason it never occurred to her that touching another woman might be something she'd like. It was a question answered at least… seeing Shizuru naked or even barely clothed or wearing stockings in her office for that matter… it was absolutely different, regardless of the fact they had the same parts.

She remembered after…wishing she had words, meaningful words to give Shizuru, something better than the unrelated half-formed hints of thought she'd uttered. She wasn't a poet by any stretch of the imagination. Coming up with the right words wasn't any easier when her body wouldn't stop tightening against the skin tingling, nerve-shattering pulsations that had become a second heartbeat. It was the first time she felt like her body ever made sense in that way and her mind couldn't quite catch up. That having sex with another woman was the first thing to actually make her feel like a woman in the bedroom... to make her understand completely what people liked so much in this, to make her body work like that…it wasn't anything she had thought to expect. She tried to explain those feelings after… but explaining her feelings was one of the few things she would rate herself as less comfortable with than letting someone touch her. Nonetheless, Shizuru seemed to understand… she always seemed to at least mostly understand... and besides which, Shizuru didn't seem to think her bad at either of those things anyway.

She remembered the morning after they slept together clearer than the night before, clearer than the conversation that came from her sleeplessness. Her girlfriend had woken an hour after she did, blinked sleepily at her, a slow breaking smile on her face which turned worried too quickly. That worried look, it was one of the few Natsuki understood without asking, one of the few that Shizuru seemed unable to control. It was in her eyes, guilt… a sort of resigned dread toward an imagined end, an inevitable pain… before it was eclipsed by a perfect, picture ready smile. That look, it followed each time Shizuru allowed herself to be vulnerable, a flash. It was a look she'd seen hours before on the bench by the window, on top of the rock at the beach… a few times before that. Though she would never say so aloud and felt a little guilty for thinking it, the look reminded Natsuki of the way her first Duran reacted to an outstretched hand. That fear… they had to be patient with him and gentle. She'd leaned over and kissed her because that seemed to chase it away. She could be patient and gentle again, the woman had already been that way with her. The lazy smile, a fast favorite of hers because it was in her eyes too... it came back.

I would never hurt you she wanted to say to her, but she didn't believe those words. It was a comforting lie and she wouldn't promise something she knew was a lie. It helped no one. I wouldn't hurt you on purpose was closer to the truth and it sounded stupid to her, preemptively apologetic. I love you was definitely true… but she hadn't said it yet... it took her a while to figure out that was what was happening. Now she withheld those words because they felt like a jinx to her, Tate… her mom…but then there was Alyssa. She'd said them to her sister and no lightning bolt had struck them down. In fairness, Shizuru had not yet said them either, not directly… but Natsuki could see it, feel it from her. That morning she had been content with letting her hands say I want you… because she needed to understand this completely, the new need stirring in her. The times they'd been together since... each one had been eye-opening in one way or another.

Now she was standing in the doorway of her room. The woman was resting in her bed, with Duran curled against her stomach. Shizuru was sleeping in. She liked to do that… which shocked her. She would have bet on the woman being an early riser. Natsuki had noticed that her dog was much better at reading Shizuru's mood than she was. He always seemed to gravitate toward her when she was uncomfortable, laid at her feet, peering up at her while resting his head on his paws… even before he decided to love her possessively and devotedly. It helped her to notice subtle things, like the surprised blink, the straight-ahead stare, the shift in her eyes… there was a lot more to notice, but she could work on it, she would work on it.

Natsuki smiled at them both, the small smile she tended to give when she felt relaxed because sunlight was stealing through the curtains and shimmering across their still forms… bringing out the golden reds in chestnut hair and the rusty orange in fur. It was absolutely love, it had to be. She'd tell the other woman that sometime soon. For now, it could just be beautiful…Shizuru was beautiful. Natsuki planned to stand in this doorway for a few moments more and appreciate the hell out of that.

Aside #29: Mai HiME (Conversation)

"I still don't understand why my guns so small."

"They looked right to me that way." The blonde commented.

"Because you have baby hands. Not her fault."

"Idiot." Her face fell as she read the character description. "Oi! Delinquent tendencies? Loves mayo?!"

Alyssa grinned. "Payback." Mayonnaise would have its day, oh yes.

"Shizuru gets the Naginata from hell, Nao gets a damn combo Spiderman Wolverine thing, Mai gets bracelet style flamethrowers and I get toy guns and mayonnaise? What's with that?"

"Alyssa has done one of me? May I see it?" The notebook was handed over and Shizuru stared at the drawing, a smile on her face. "I like the color." The brunette remarked cheerfully, reading the character notes jotted along the side of the page. "I would assume the designation of Student Council President was Natsuki's doing?"

A lop-sided, self-satisfied grin crossed her face. "Maybe."

Shizuru gave the girl a happy smile, folding her arms and sending the woman beside her an unnoticed glance. "It is as well done as the rest of them."

"Thanks!" The blonde responded, her blush minimal compared to those she'd had in the past.

A dangerous grin appeared on the face of the woman in the armchair. "You're such a damn nerd pup. Spiderman my ass…it's more like an S & M thing."

"Nao, Jesus!" Natsuki gestured to her younger sister, while Shizuru watched her curiously. She thought it fascinating that her girlfriend knew what that was…

"I know what it is, okay? Can you two be nice to each other for once?" The blonde interrupted, giving them what was intended to be a stern look.

"Why do you know what that is?" Natsuki glared and Nao immediately noticed the small smirk on the face of the brunette woman next to her. The redhead winked in her direction, which caused a tawny eyebrow to curve upward.

"Nao showed me her collection." Alyssa grinned, sticking her tongue out childishly at the girl in the armchair. The young blonde deliberately did not mention the fiasco that awaited her when she returned from her partying after the beach. That poor guy… she didn't even know people could be allergic to adhesive tape. The thought of his face and the contact dermatitis that was confined to a perfect rectangle over his mouth… across his wrists… no denying where the swatch of duct tape had been. The Benadryl and ice packs and his bewildered look… she couldn't believe Nao was just gonna kick him out like that. On the other hand, it was just as unbelievable to Alyssa that Nao had caved so quickly when she'd gotten upset and insistent that they help him. Lastly, it was totally crazy how fast he ran out of that house when he found out whom it belonged to. The whole mess fit in nicely with what had become a running joke between them. It could be a veiled reference, buried in the gag that the young blonde was in love with the older woman.

Natsuki's eyes widened and her head flipped between the two. "What the hell does that mean?"

Lime green eyes narrowed, but a smirk was there. "Wishful thinking. I think your kid sister's got a crush on me, Kuga." A quick burning green flame jumped to life and Alyssa watched, worried. "She's kinda cute, but it's never gonna happen," Nao commented only to further her friend's irritation as did the wink that accompanied it.

"Could've done without the kinda but… thanks… I think." The girl rubbed at her neck, looking over at her sister. The expression on her face was troubling. "Nat …it's a joke."

She was glaring at the woman in the armchair and Shizuru was merely observing while she sipped at her tea. "Not funny."

"No, it was funny," Nai argued, checking and picking at her cuticles. "Weren't you boring the hell out of us with your whining Kuga?"

"She was complaining about her guns being too small." Alyssa reminded, kicking at the woman's foot with her own because she didn't like when the teases became too mean. Blood before friends…

"The point is that even if I made it to the end, how am I gonna beat your android, Alyssa? Her gun is like three times as big as mine, it's automatic, and you gave her options. This whole battle to the death scenario is rigged. I'd never survive." Natsuki remarked with frustration.

Mai chimed in from the kitchen with a cheerful addition. "It's not the size that matters Natsuki, ne?"

A stiff finger was pointed toward the other room. "Shut up Mai!" Her girlfriend had some difficulty containing a wide smile and was nudged with an elbow.

"Is that a reference to your boyfriend Tokiha?" Nao interjected, delighted with own wittiness until a cracker flew past her face.

"Aw, Nao. Your concern is touching." Shizuru smiled at the response, while the girl in the armchair rolled her eyes. "But I'm perfectly satisfied."

"Guess it doesn't take much."

Natsuki glared at both of them. "Stop! Goddamn. I have to work with him!" Mai smiled to herself as she went back to fixing the snacks. Nao never got under her skin the way she could their dark-haired friend. She liked the banter every now and then and had no problem giving it back. She and the other girl had become closer since their night on the balcony and what that meant was an increase in the amount of teasing. "And Nao was way more of a delinquent than I ever was. I just skipped a lot." She sighed.

Laughing, red-brown eyes turned on the sulky dark-haired woman, patting her cheek with a bright smile. "I would devote the bulk of my resources as Student Council President to Natsuki's protection, even if she is a truant."

Two pairs of green eyes rolled for entirely different reasons. "Does the Student Council President get an AK-47?"

Shizuru looked to Alyssa questioningly, who smirked and shook her head as she pushed the notebook forward once again. "Doubtful, I am afraid."

The young blonde flipped through the notebook. She found it amusing how older people always insisted teenagers were such hormone-driven creatures. In her experience, people who called themselves adults were far worse. "Here, Nat."

As the journal was taken, the blonde flopped onto her back of the carpet, making herself comfortable and wiggling her fingers at Duran, who snapped his teeth at the air excitedly. "What's this?"

Alyssa bent her knees and used them to lift her hips, while she fished a pack of gum from her back pocket. "New design."

The raven-haired woman took the notebook and gazed at the new picture, wide-eyed. "…woah."

"You said you wanted a bigger gun."

There was a crooked grin on her face matched her younger sister's almost perfectly. "That's a damn cannon. What's with the outfit?"

"New world. Same characters."

"Better." Another moment to study the drawing. "The hair thing looks like the headphones you gave me."

"Yup."

Shizuru glanced over and looked at the page, a smile forming. "It is impressively large." Natsuki's head dipped as she frowned.

Nao grinned dangerously, the slender fingers that dangled off her knee snatching the pack of gum from the hands of the young woman, who glared playfully at her. "That Naginata is pretty big too. You sure you could work it Doc? Could be pretty rough if you don't know what you're doing. Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself with it... or the pup."

The steady gaze that was now pointed at the woman in the armchair sparkled with amusement. There was an odd sort of tension between them, the kind that existed between two people unsure what to make of one another. Shizuru rested an elbow on the arm of the couch, placing her thumb beneath her chin and resting two fingers on the side of her face. "It is a fairly straightforward design, no? The size may be daunting for one who has never controlled such an instrument before, but I must confess I have had quite a bit of practice."

"My mistake Doc." Natsuki's eyes darted between the two women, not totally sure what they meant but sure that it was best she didn't. If it made Nao back down, then chances are it would set her face aflame.

"You guys are taking this way too seriously." Alyssa interrupted, a bit uncomfortable as she unwrapped a stick of gum, stole the pack back and tossed the pack to her sister.

After reading through a few more pages, she paused on one and slumped against the couch. "So why is Mai the hero?"

A scoffing laugh erupted from the armchair. "Really Kuga? Tokiha's got selfless, sappy do-gooder written all over her." Studying their friend as she walked in, plates balanced on arms, Natsuki's mouth quirked … it was true actually. "Besides, you'd make a shitty hero Kuga. You're too abrasive."

Alyssa laughed, tilting her head back to glance at Nao. "Oh, Nat's too abrasive?"

A hand flicked downward dismissively. "I never said I wanted to be the hero."

"I could be the bad guy!" Mai protested, setting a plate of freshly-made snacks in front of her friends. "Get your feet off the armrest…geez." She shooed the other redhead's socked feet away.

"So which would it be, Tokiha? Feed them to death or nag them to death?" Nao commented, grabbing a piece of food, ignoring the flash of outrage on her friend's face. Natsuki laughed too loudly. "That boyfriend of yours would be way better… 'one drink's' too pretty and proper. It would give him some damn character."

Mai raised an eyebrow. "I dunno. That whale dragon thing Alyssa gave me looks kinda dangerous."

"A whale dragon?"

"I mean yeah it's a dragon, but it kind of looks like a whale too!"

"Guess you need a visual. There's one over on the couch plowing through your snacks like it's her damn job." Natsuki glared ferociously, mid-bite and her girlfriend stared rather intensely, none too pleased either. Alyssa's mouth had formed a tiny 'o' as she looked between the two women.

Smiling, Mai pushed a piece of food into Nao's surprised mouth, grinning and giving a thumb's up and squinting "Mmm. Now I see it."

FIN.