Chapter twenty-one

A base too far

Anna didn't know if she'd even be able to get to sleep. But at least she was happy.

Anna lay still, awake but not moving, in her bed. Elsa's arms were wrapped around her waist, and her face was buried in Anna's hair. She was asleep. Anna didn't understand how she could be.

Context was everything. This was obviously not the first time she'd shared a bed with Elsa – hell, it wasn't even the first time this month. But now that she was her girlfriend, it resulted in sensory overload – literally, every sense of hers but sight was overwhelmed by Elsa. She supposed it didn't matter much, since she had no exams tomorrow, but at this moment, sleep was the absolute last thing on her mind.

She'd changed into another set of underwear before getting into bed, because her previous set was too damp with sweat. But now, lying here, she still felt wet.

Her brain told her to calm down, slow down. She should feel lucky that she'd gotten this far with Elsa in such a short time. But her body still craved more. Elsa's affection for her had nurtured her sex drive, and it had only grown stronger and stronger. She found herself wanting to do things that she had never even thought of before.

To be honest, it was a little frightening how fast things were going. Just as Elsa had said, this was all new ground for her, and here she was, charging forward with no seatbelt. Lying here, wrapped in her sister's embrace, her body still demanded she do more, more, more.

Slowly, her hand reached downward, towards her panties. Maybe just a quick one, she thought. I'm already halfway there. But the shift was still noticed by an unconscious Elsa, who tightened her grip, pulling Anna in. She abandoned that course of action, the tightened snuggle almost enough to satisfy her bodily desires.

Well, if she reacted to that, she'll definitely react to…that.

At last, her brain had some ammunition to veto her body's requests: can't move, you'll wake Elsa. Her body, thus rebuffed, relaxed, which was the first sign Anna noticed that it had been tensed to begin with. And with this conflict resolved, at last her exhaustion took over. Her eyes drifted shit, and her last lucid thought was of Elsa's arms, wrapped around her chest.

There's my seatbelt. I'm wearing it right now.

xxxxxxx

It was another evening, another date. Or was it a date? Elsa couldn't say for sure.

They were on the couch together, draped arm in arm. Elsa was browsing on her laptop while Anna watched Property Brothers. Every now and then, one of them would plant a kiss on the other, but never go beyond that. In most circles, that would constitute a date – but then, they were already pretty far from most circles.

Her attention divided threefold, Elsa was having a hard time concentrating on her computer. She cycled through a few different social media sites, gaining less useful information with each pass. Far less information than the sensory feedback she was getting from holding Anna. It was the best kind of problem to have.

"Hey, Els?" Anna said after a while.

"Hmm?" Elsa said.

"I was thinking," she said.

Elsa nodded. "You do that a lot," she noted.

"So, our next date will probably be next week, after my graduation," she said.

Elsa scratched the back of her head. "Man, that thing really snuck up on us, didn't it?"

Anna nodded. "So I've been thinking of something new to do. You went with me on a walk, so I'd like to return the favor."

Elsa arched an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Well, you still go to the gym pretty often, right?"

She chuckled guiltily. "Not as often as I should," she admitted. "But, maybe if I had a cute gym partner to show the ropes to, I'd have a good enough motivation to make it there."

"Cute partner, huh?" Anna said. "Well, I could be one of those things."

Elsa ruffled her hair. "You're already both of those things," she said.

Anna giggled adorably. Elsa returned to browsing, switching to her email.

She saw she'd received a new email, and she stiffened. She recognized the address immediately, and the subject line contained the phrase she'd learned to dread.

Anna noticed the change. "Are you okay?" she asked worriedly.

Elsa panted to the email as her response. Anna read the subject.

"Your Differential Equations test results are posted online." She looked at Elsa. "Don't be afraid," she said, resting her hand on her sister's. "You said you nailed it, right? I have faith in you."

Elsa swallowed. "That makes one of us," she said with a weak smile.

She had known the results would be in this week, but she still found herself wishing it had taken longer. She had done her best to ignore the tension, silently hoping that somehow the results would never come in, but now they had. Now it was time to find out if even Anna's help was enough to save her.

Anna squeezed her hand. "You've got this," she asserted. "Do you want me to look away for this?"

"No, no," Elsa said, opening the email. "You'd find out anyway." She took a deep breath before clicking on the link. Her heart rate accelerated as the page loaded.

Anna placed her other hand on Elsa's back. "You've got this, you've got this," she said, but she seemed tense as well.

Finally, after what felt like an hour, the page loaded. Elsa swallowed. She and Anna read the number together.

"…87%!" Anna exclaimed. Elsa stared at the screen, not believing what she was seeing. Anna wrapped her arms around her. "You did it, Elsa! You did it!" she shouted.

Relief washed over Elsa's body, like a wave rushing over a beach. Her stiff shoulders slacked, and her entire body sagged. She collapsed into Anna's arms, a tear falling from her eye. "I did it," she croaked. "Finally."

"I knew you could it!" Anna said, squeezing her tightly. "I could tell during our study sessions – you really understood the stuff!"

Elsa looked into her eyes. "Thank you," she said, her voice emotional. "Thank you so much, Anna. I owe it all to you."

"I helped," Anna said modestly. "You still had to figure it out yourself, you put in the hard-"

"I owe it all to you," Elsa repeated. "I couldn't have done it without you, not even close. You're amazing."

Anna attempted to protest, but something in Elsa's voice stopped her. It was raw, emotional, and filled with adoration and love. Both kinds of love.

Anna stroked her hair, her fingers gliding through the silvery ocean. "Anything for my girlfriend, and my sister," she said. "Anything."

xxxxxxx

They tried to go back to their previous positions, but they couldn't. Though Elsa returned to her computer, and Anna looked back at the TV, something was different. The atmosphere had shifted, and they both felt the change. What had just been a casual night now felt full of energy, charged by their emotional exchange. Elsa's arm around Anna's shoulders tingled, wishing to explore further. She pulled Anna closer in, rubbing up and down her arm.

She couldn't have said who initiated the kiss this time. One minute they were sitting there, side by side, and the next minute, their mouths were intertwined. Elsa had just enough presence of mind left to close her laptop and place it on the floor before her hands snapped to Anna's body. She didn't think she'd ever get used to this feeling.

Their positions slowly changed. Elsa, gaining confidence, slowly leaned in. Anna turned to face her, then leaned back in sync. Gently, her head touched the soft armrest, then sank into it. Elsa shifted to allow Anna to pull her legs onto the sofa, then straddled her.

Elsa pulled back for just a moment to view the beautiful tableau laid out in front of her. Her baby sister, stretched out on the sofa beneath her, was radiant. Though fully clothed, her body glowed with sexual energy. She lay there, panting from their exchange, with a look of adoration, but also of faint impatience, as if asking why she had stopped their very important task at hand. So it was only for a moment that she watched from afar, before diving back in, re-engaging their kiss and being rewarded with a close-up view of the object of her desire, close enough to count her freckles.

In the past, it was her who had often been lying against the sofa or bed, while her more experienced girlfriends took the wheel. But now she was in command of the situation, and Anna was putty in her hands. Realizing that she was the one in control intoxicated her, and she decided that she wanted more. So she reached a hand down, under Anna's shirt.

Anna froze, her body going stiff as a board. Her eyes shot open, and an expression of panic flitted across them for a second.

Elsa felt the change immediately, and it chilled her to the bone. In an instant, she broke off the kiss and withdrew her hand, pulling back from Anna and retreating to the other end of the sofa. Unsure of whether to say "I'm sorry" or "What's wrong?" first, she elected to stay silent and wait for Anna to talk.

A few seconds passed with neither girl saying anything, each frozen in place for different reasons. Then, as Anna's breath returned to her, her composure did the same. Her tense body slacked, and she blinked twice, the look of panic gone from her eyes. She swallowed the saliva that had been accumulating in her mouth. "Sorry," she said.

"What…happened?" Elsa asked, releasing her tight grip on the opposing armrest. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, no, it's fine," Anna said. "It's nothing."

She beckoned for Elsa to come back, but Elsa wasn't having it. "That wasn't nothing," she insisted.

Anna sighed. "It wasn't your fault, it was mine. It's just…" She took a deep breath. "What you just did…Hans did to me. Twice."

A flood of contradictory emotions hit Elsa. "I…see," she said, remaining neutral in tone.

Anna seemed uncomfortable, but she continued. "This was a few weeks before I dumped him, right when I was starting to see him for what he really was. He tried it once at a movie theater, but I slapped him away. He…got farther the second time." She looked down. "That was the last time I let him touch me."

Anger flushed Elsa's cheeks. "I let him off too easily," she said, scowling. "I should've broken his slimy little fingers." She looked at her own fingers, a tinge of guilt entering her expression.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have reacted that way," Anna said placatively. "You're not him. The fact that you pulled back just now proves that. The feeling just brought back memories, that's all. It was my fault."

Elsa shook her head. "No, it's mine. I should've asked by now if there was anything he did to you that you wouldn't want me to do." She hung her head. The same feeling of control that she had relished just a moment prior now curved back on her, stabbing her with a pang of guilt.

"It's fine, Elsa, really," Anna said, reaching forward. "It was just a stupid reflex, it won't happen again."

Elsa avoided taking her hand. "I should be the one promising you that it won't happen again. I don't ever want to make you feel that way ever again." She stood up. "We've done enough for tonight, anyway. We should get to bed."

Anna hesitated for a moment, then stood up as well. "Okay," she said. Her body language conveyed disappointment, but she mustered a smile. "Good night, then, Elsa."

She leaned forward, but Elsa turned her head. The kiss landed on her cheek, chaste and sisterly. "Good night," she said, trying on her best reassuring smile.

As she climbed the stairs and headed to her bedroom, conflicting emotions savaged her again, both shame at her causing this situation and relief that she had managed to de-escalate the situation shortly after.

You thought that was the moment you'd been fearing for weeks now, didn't you? The moment where she's suddenly repulsed by what you've been doing to her.

It was an irrational fear, moreso with each passing day. Anna seemed to be fully on board with everything she was doing – hell, she had a reminder of that on her neck right now. But it was clear now that just because Anna was on board, that didn't mean she couldn't get hurt. That fact should've been clear from the start, except Elsa had let her paranoia for the opposite outcome cloud her judgment.

Besides, even if Anna is 100% on board…I'm not sure if I am.

She winced. It was a moral debate that she'd been able to stave off so far. She had been wanting this for a while, now, and it seemed to be making Anna happy. But obviously, just because they were both happy didn't mean it was right. And now, she'd just been served a grim reminder that physical intimacy could drag some nasty feelings to the surface, if by complete accident.

Being Anna's girlfriend means that I will cause her pain sometimes. There's no question about that. And sisters can't break up, but girlfriends can. Girlfriends do.

These fears and anxieties swirled around in her head as she brushed her teeth, not quieting as she put on her pajamas and only growing louder as she laid down in her bed. Remembering the feeling of Anna's rigid body, scared and repulsed, if only by a memory, made her shudder.

We've been going too fast, that's the first problem. She took a big step forward on our walk, and I took another big one today. This one was too far. I let my guard down for a moment, and she got hurt because of it. We'll have to slow down. No more pushing boundaries until we both fully understand where they are. If I'm in control here, that means it's my responsibility to know when to slow down, and when to stop.

Her decision felt like the right one, satisfying the most scathing voices in her head and only upsetting her libido. Sleep, while still far off, was incipient. She couldn't silence all of her concerns, but she'd gotten good at working around them at this point. But just when she let her guard down, a new realization hit her, one not as hostile as the others, but just as terrifying.

That was the last time I let him touch me. That's what she said. Meaning that's as far as they went. Meaning if we go any further, whatever we do, it'll be the first time for Anna.

So far, all of Anna's firsts had been taken by Hans, which sucked. Elsa had felt little guilt in reclaiming those moments for her. But now, they would be breaking new ground going forward. Each new first Anna experienced would be with her. All of the new feelings and emotions would permanently be associated with her. Her sister.

And each time, her chances of ever having a normal relationship after Elsa would get smaller and smaller.

Which might be what she wanted now, but who's to say it would stay that way forever? Should she not have at least the option to live a normal life? Well, if things keep going the way they have been, she won't.

And it'll be my responsibility. My doing. My fault.