TW: Abuse, misogynistic language.
If you don't like reading about cheating/infidelity, this fic is not for you.
I'm bastardizing your beloved characters to make this work but it doesn't (and shouldn't) reflect my views of these characters.
The blue lava lamp glowing on top of a bedside table is what Tifa's eyes are focused on as she undresses.
"What's the name of that friend again?" she asks, stepping out of the bundle of clothes around her feet. "The one who asked you to come over at his place this Sunday."
She hears the clink of metal from Cloud's leather belt as he pulls down his pants. "Zack. Zack Fair," he answers in his typical monotone way of speaking.
"What was it about again… his invitation?"
"Exhibition. Photography."
He hops onto the bed, wobbling the bouncy mattress and lays there with nothing but a tight grey underwear that visibly outlines his bulge.
Tifa climbs above him, then leans down to nibble the edges of his left ear. "Will he mind if I come along too?" she doesn't want to talk about some other man when they're trying to have sex but it's just so much easier to loosen Cloud up when he's distracted.
"No… he'll like it better when there's more crowd," Cloud answers, before letting out a sigh as she trails his throat with her lips and slides her hand along his tent.
Him reacting is a start… but it's taking a while – a little too long for her liking – for him to get as hard as she wants him to. So she grabs both of his hands and let them palm her breasts, hoping that the feel of her soft skin and the fabric of her laced bra would turn him on more. When it's clear that they're still not getting anywhere, she sneaks her hand into his underwear and starts jerking him off.
Come on… Get hard. Get hard.
It's not even past five minutes when Cloud's hand abruptly stops her.
She frowns and a familiar set of words leaves his mouth: "Sorry…"
"Cloud. It's been three months…. three fucking months since we had sex."
"I know." He runs his hands across his face until they land on his head. "I'm just tired."
Tifa wants to argue but he's already slipping underneath the plush cotton blanket and rolling to his side, not wanting to continue the talk. She stares at the lines of muscles on his back and bites down her frustration.
The heat simmering between her legs is showing no signs of dying down and her mind quickly shifts to the one thing that can relieve her: an item she keeps inside one of the top drawers of the dresser, besides a litter of lubes and condoms.
Her favourite buzzing purple vibrator.
The one thing that keeps her sane all throughout the three months of dry spell.
Zack Fair's place is what you would expect from a house built on a high hill overlooking the rest of the city: contemporary, slick and boxy in design, with large glass windows and a wide swimming pool. The man himself is quite the looker, with his jet black pointy hair, devilish grin and a scar on his jaw. He has proudly introduced himself to his guests as an expert in boudoir photography.
"They are meant to emphasize on the beauty of intimacy," Zack explained in his opening remarks as he stood next to the first photograph in the exhibition room.
He wasn't kidding. Tifa can't take her eyes off the photographs – the sensuality, the nudity, the raw emotionality… she almost cried just from looking at them.
She wants to be part of the photographs.
She envies those who did.
She misses the time when she could have been one of those photographed, when such intimacy was very much alive in her relationship with Cloud.
Two to three hours must have passed when Tifa is finally finished going through the exhibition and wants her arm wrapped around Cloud, only to find him gone to Minerva knows where.
She leaves the room to navigate through corridors enclosed in between walls lined with more erotic photographs, passing by unfamiliar faces who are swaying their hips to a dub mix. At a serving table, she picks up a glass of cocktail, then moves past the dancing horde to make it to a quiet corridor that's empty of people. She assumes Cloud is hiding somewhere here, trying to recover from an anxiety attack that's often triggered by his social phobia.
There is a room in the corridor with its door left ajar that she almost pushed broadly open.
Thankfully, she didn't.
A little peak at the room reveals to her a scene that's never meant for her to see: Zack is railing a woman on a desk that thumps gratingly against the floor. His body obscures her full view of the woman but the floral tattoo inked on the woman's left thigh doesn't escape her notice. Their moans and grunts follow every beat of their movements – rough and relentless.
Tifa tears herself away and sprints to a nearest point where she can take a breather.
Shit… I need to cool down.
She asks for directions to the kitchen, walks there and immediately splashes herself with cold water from the tap.
She zones out for a little while after.
"You okay?" a woman asks, bringing her back to wherever she is.
She isn't aware for how long she has been hovering by the sink.
"Umm… yeah."
She turns to find a woman in a pink crop top and a black leather mini skirt leaning against an island, with a glass bottle of Honey Bee beer in her hand. Her brown wavy hair is settled nicely on her back and there's a floral tattoo – intricately inked yellow and white flowers – on her left thigh.
There's no mistaking her. She's one hundred percent the woman who's writhing underneath Zack Fair a couple of minutes ago. Tifa can smell his musky perfume sticking to the woman, mixing and mingling with her nectarous fragrance.
For some reason, the woman offers her the beer, which she accepts rather reluctantly.
"Never seen you before… first time around?"
Tifa nods, taking a sip out of the bottle.
"Zack invited you over?"
"No. I came with his friend."
"Which one?"
"Cloud… Cloud Strife. Heard of him?"
"I guess so," the woman says, somewhat disinterested, like she never wanted to know in the first place.
Tifa raises her eyebrows, a bit miffed and confused. She returns the beer and the woman is drinking from the bottle again.
"I'm Aerith, as in R-I-T-H, Aereeeth. You have to roll the end of your tongue against your teeth to pronounce it correctly," the woman says, introducing herself. "I'm having none of that Aereees mispronunciation shit that people always do to my name."
The woman drinks again and Tifa stares closely at the rim of the bottle. She doesn't know why she's thinking about it but her own mouth was there… a while ago.
"Tifa… my name's Tifa."
"A pretty name… for a pretty woman."
Tifa lifts her sight from the bottle and their eyes meet. A breathless moment passes before her eyes drift to something else: purple-red marks near Aerith's collarbones. Beautiful, prominent collarbones, by the way. Collarbones that make her curious about… what would it be like to have her lips pressed against them.
Zack's lucky to have total access to them.
Aerith moves closer to her, beckoning her to look at the woman in the face again… which she does. The woman's lips are upturned into a grin, and her eyes have taken a sultry glow.
Tifa swallows.
The sound of heavy footsteps knocking against the tiled floors as someone else enters the kitchen becomes the only deterrent to whatever they were about to engage in.
She shakes her head.
Must be all the horny in me…
"Aerith! What the FUCK!"
Tifa jolts at the loud yelling and spins around to find Zack agitated as he inspects trays of beer cans.
"I told you to get us one hundred of these, didn't I?" Zack is roaring at Aerith as if she isn't there to witness the commotion at close range. "We're missing twenty of them!"
"Stop making a big deal out of it. We can just buy them online and get them delivered here in no time."
Zack groans. "These are only on sale in Costa Del Sol! That's five working days away!"
"Just get some other brand then!"
"I only drink and serve beer from Costa Del Sol. Everything else tastes like chicken shit, you know that!"
"Honey Bee's don't. Besides, how do you know what chicken shit even tastes like?"
Zack slams his arms against the island. A scathing remark makes its way out of his mouth as he points a thin finger to Aerith's face, "This is why you're so fucking stupid, Aerith! All you care about is running your mouth like the little bitch you are!"
Tifa winces as Aerith slaps Zack's hand away. "Don't you dare call me a bitch, you fuck face! And I'm not stupid!"
Tifa isn't really sure how things really went after that. She only saw those trays of cans violently shoved off from the island by Zack. The spill and wet stain on the floor are completely ignored as the tirade of insult continue between him and Aerith. The guests of the party have gone silent but no one dares to intervene, until Zack harshly hurls her against a wall.
A man with a mole at the centre of his forehead rushes to put his body in between the feuding pair. "Hey hey hey! That's enough!"
"Stop fucking interfering, Tseng!" Zack hisses.
Zack sets his eyes back to Aerith, and it's not hard to discern the intense level of animosity that he's holding. It's almost like he would harm her, if not for the man who acts like a barrier.
The screaming fest now includes the voice of the barrier man.
Their screaming lasted for twenty minutes, stopping only because of the arrival of police forces secretly dialled by one of the guests.
Tifa is sitting on a loveseat, watching as the police forces speak to the trio and writing down their testimonies, when she feels a hand touching her back.
"Hey… wanna skip off?"
Cloud is looking at her with his sky blue eyes as if he didn't just left her on her own throughout the entire ordeal.
But she doesn't want to cause another scene. She just wants to go home. "'kay."
She rises up, ready to leave but not without giving one last look to Aerith.
Aerith is already looking at her.