For a while Renee just lays there with her eyes closed, listening to Sophie mumble as she writhes and grasps at the sheets. She can feel Sophie's skin warming beside her own and though she can't work out what she's saying – and though Sophie didn't have an answer for either of them the day before - she knows exactly what she's seeing in sleep. She knows what she's dreaming about, what she yearns for, who…
The question is, what to do about it? Should she continue to feign sleep and ignore her lover's fantasizing about another woman? Should she leave her alone with those fantasies? Give her the space to explore them solo. Or should she perhaps indulge them?
She opens her eyes and looks across at Sophie's flushed face, feeling the heat pooling between her own legs as it colours the other woman's cheeks. It's ridiculous how jealousy would be simpler at this point, if they were more to each other than just an easy acquaintance or incredible match in bed. But as it is that's what they have to work with. And she can't deny that they work well together.
She rolls smoothly over so that her face is hidden in Sophie's neck, mouth gently lifted to whisper in her ear, coaxing her to remain suspended between waking and dreaming. 'Keep your eyes closed…' she drawls, trailing her fingers lazily across the soft skin of her stomach, smiling as her breath hitches and holds there, Sophie's mind and body figuring out what's going on. Renee kisses along her jawline, nipping at her earlobe and nuzzling further into her soporific warmth. 'Tell me what you need…'
Sophie doesn't speak. She stills Renee's hand on her body, briefly keeping them both just there, silent except for the heavy anticipatory breathing. For a moment Renee thinks she's going to stop this completely, that the attempt at playing the role is a charade too far for them, but then Sophie lifts her hand in her own, moving it slowly up to cup her cheek as she turns her face down towards the pillow, lips tentatively seeking. Everything about her has softened, not just in touch but in intent, and as Sophie slowly explores Renee's mouth with her own, her hands reach around to pull her closer and seal any space between their bodies.
Without opening her eyes, without leaving that precipice that's allowing her this balance, this consenting unreality, Sophie leans fully into her desire in a way she never has before.
'Love me,' she whispers against the other woman's lower lip.
It's not what she'd expected and for a few seconds she freezes, knowing she didn't mishear but dumbstruck by what it means. Her mouth remains unmoving against Sophie's as her body and brain race to compute what she perhaps should have already known. This isn't them. It isn't their deal, their function to and for one another. As themselves they know their roles and they fulfill them; they know the signals and they satisfy them. But this need is something else entirely.
'Okay.' She isn't sure if she says it out loud but it doesn't matter.
There is no teasing, no laughter, no tearing urgency, no mutual desire for the immediate gratification of a quick fuck; the journey is more important than the destination this time. She doesn't go for the tried and tested, or the places she knows to draw reaction. She takes her time to map out Sophie's body with her own, to draw out the parts, the details, the intricate pieces that make her, and she lavishes them all. She plays her part as closely to perfection as their circumstances allow.
As her fingers sail the contours of the body next to her, she allows herself to drift, travelling back to those first few months of loving Pam. Not the very beginning – the tentative touches, the growing confidence, the lusty newness of it all – but to the first 'I love yous', the first glimpses of real and lasting, the first all encompassing, solid, knowing months of pure contentment. Their fit was like something she'd never known before, or again. Untold hours spent dancing around that first apartment when they didn't even have electricity or furniture (or music) yet. Days off spent playfighting on a mattress on the floor, too easily distracted to paint the walls, too happy to simply be together for anything else to contend. She whimpers a little, ghosting her lips across the underside of a raised arm with her eyes closed.
The sound gently vibrates across Sophie's skin, carrying with it a swell of feeling that lodges in her chest. She tingles all over – the way she'd expect exposed flesh to feel in an ice storm except she's exquisitely warm, senses fully switched on though her body is inert. She feels both heavy and light at the same time, unable and unwilling to move herself, but completely, blissfully, relinquishing control to another. A finger coasts it's way slowly down the curve of her nose, traces a smile onto her mouth, gently kissed at the corners. Her legs are moved slightly to accommodate the body shifting atop her own to settle into this new space. She feels wet heat and eyes on her all at once, a weight so fully rested on her and released from her at the same time. It's almost too much. Almost.
'You are so beautiful…' her voice breathes, and she's not pretending now. Watching Sophie react to whatever this is, whatever semblance of need she's meeting for her, is sparking things in her that were long dormant. The more Sophie responds to her, the more she wants her to. It doesn't matter that for Sophie it's not actually her because the feelings she's awakening – the muscle memory of really being with someone – are about another woman for her too. Her body just seems to know what they both need and how to provide it. And so it does. She does.
For the first time, albeit as someone else, she makes love to Sophie Moore.