Wife
"What if I am?" She snapped back defiantly as she leaned forward, her chin slightly raised and her hands firmly gripping the edge of the washing machine where she sat even as her bare legs swung listlessly over the washer door.
At almost twenty she still had the gangly arms of a pubescent girl, and a slender boyish figure that often came with youth. Her freckled, sun-kissed rosy cheeks and brilliant blue eyes were like a homage to rustic feminine beauty. She had always been this lovely, even as a child, and was made only lovelier by the messy twin braids that fell over her shoulders. The fiery hues of her hair only a shade lighter than red. But for all her loveliness, the girl walked a fine line between open hostility and sullen civility.
Especially to her.
"You're not," the wife insisted, but it was a tepid reply. There was nearly a ten year difference between them, and yet experience had not given Elsa the confidence that was lacking in her voice. She seemed unconvinced of her own words when she spoke, her restless hands fidgeting with her husband's laundered shirt. Her denial nothing more than a thin veil over her unyielding fears. Fears had that festered since that day she professed her vows before an entire congregation.
"Well, I think you're afraid."
Her husband's sister was sitting closer to the edge of the washer now, a tiny smirk curled up at the corner of her lips, the intrepid look in her eyes shimmering with something like accusation and smug satisfaction. It was the same sort of look that seven-year-old Anna had often reserved for her whenever the child stole away her brother's attentions from his undeserving girlfriend.
Anna and her anger. She clung onto it the way a newborn fastens to its mother. The remnants of a vestigial, and likely imagined betrayal long forgotten, with the same ferocity of a cornered animal. As the girlfriend, she understood she was an outsider. As a wife, she was constantly seeking out her patience, especially as the girl became less of a child.
"I see right through you," a thirteen-year-old Anna had declared away from the prying eyes of others, practically hissing her words, and her face twisted in vexation. Nevermind that they were in the middle of celebrating hers and Kristoff's engagement party. "You're a fraud, and a phony."
"Am I a fake too?" It had taken all of Elsa's efforts not to submit to the haughty derision simmering beneath her stilted smile.
"You're making fun of me."
"Is that why you hate me so much? Because you think I'm a phony?"
"My brother thinks you're so perfect-"
"I'm not perfect."
"I know you're not. You're a master pretender, and you have everyone fooled. But not me." So dramatic. Her disdain was practically palpable.
And always, always so angry.
She was more subtle now, virulent but coy, like caustic words on rose-scented parchment. The steel of her cool blue eyes lured her into an almost fervid temptation, a path almost certainly laden with thorns.
There was no discernable difference from the acerbic girl before her now, and the one whose lips she'd tasted just a week before. Supple lips, tart and tangy lips, the bittersweetness juxtaposed by crushing mouths, and warring truculent tongues impassioned by unspoken indignation. The moment had been fleeting, but it had left her agitated and stupefied by the evocative dissonance that swelled her thoughts.
She was afraid, and no words would form on her lips to articulate otherwise. Her own body rejected the denial of this very fact.
"I'm not wrong, am I?" Anna persisted, leaning forward with ease, despite how dangerously close she was to slipping off the edge of the washer. She was near enough to touch, and Elsa was left with strange nascent stirrings as Anna reached an unprovoked hand and tugged at the hem of Elsa's shirt.
Her first instinct was to back away, but something in her brain had shut down, and her limbs became useless and inert to her own commands. Another easy tug from Anna, and her limbs were innervated once more, compelling her forward, and negating the space between them.
"You're so easy to read," her sister-in-law nearly whispered, the heat of her breath teasing the short hairs on Elsa's neck, just below the hairline. Her ears tingled and her florid cheeks grew hot, deepening to a near ruddy red. Anger and embarrassment filled her, clenching her jaw and tensing the muscles in her arms and shoulders. It was only when she tightened her hands into trembling fists that she noticed they were now empty, and Kristoff's shirt lay tracked on the floor, crumpled under her feet.
"You're such a brat, you know that?" They were the first honest words that had crossed her lips since the impulsive kiss they'd shared.
"Is that so?" Anna simpered, sliding a hand up Elsa's arm, tracing fingers along the veins, and stopping at the soft crease of her elbow. "Is that what you were thinking when you had your tongue in my mouth?"
"Don't do that," she croaked, her throat growing arid and tight.
"Don't do what?" Anna replied with feigned innocence.
"Whatever this is."
Elsa's arms were trembling now, her fingers aching as she clenched her fists, as if the act alone would fetter her diminishing resolve.
"And just what is it that I'm doing?" Anna pressed on, running the tips of her fingers along the waistband of Elsa's jeans, and teasing the soft area of her stomach just above the fastened button. "Am I making you wet?"
With those words, her mind emptied all cogent thoughts, and her impetuous hands reached for Anna's thighs, clasping possessively as they tugged forward, seemingly acting independent of her own intentions. But she wanted Anna's legs sealed around her hips, and her body pressed against her own. Anna seemed to want it too. There wasn't a vestige of hesitation when she coiled her legs around Elsa's waist and clasped her fingers on her bare shoulders.
Conjoined as they were from the waist up, their lips remained just breaths apart. Anna's contentious eyes locked with hers, her gaze suffused with an efflorescent charge, enthralling and licentious, and baiting her to submit to the very thing Elsa had wanted to avoid.
And she did.
Their lips came together, drawn in by the gravitational pull of their incensed bodies. Elsa's hands shifted up Anna's thighs, curving along the rounded cheeks of her backside, flexing her tremulous fingers on the firm flesh as her tongue sought out the deepest places of Anna's ravenous mouth. Her tongue pressed deeper still, twisting and curling around Anna's, siphoning a soft groan of ecstasy. She was dimly aware of the hardened nipples teasing her own, just two thin layers away from skin to skin contact. And her shoulders aching; a soft gasp escaping her as Anna's hands clawed impatiently, digging fingernails into soft bare skin.
The laundry room swelled with sounds of their wet lips coming together and apart; moist smacks of tongues and mouths, and the rustle of fabric tousled by restless hands. In their frenzy, the struggle for air became unbearable, and their earnest lips eased into soft, languid kisses.
Anna's arms draped over Elsa's shoulders, her fingers caressing the wisps of hairs along the nape of her neck, enclosing her in a tender embrace. Their eyes fluttered open just enough to remain entranced, but their breaths grew strained as hips stirred, rocking in slow, rousing rhythms, and igniting a deeper longing. It was easy enough to ignore at first, but the tempo of their hips deepened, sweeping her into an aching sweetness of heady intoxication. Within moments, her sex spasmed, and she tensed, pulling Anna flush against her, her hands clutching and trembling as she buried her face in Anna's sweat-glistened neck.
"I'm a terrible person, aren't I?" Elsa rasped above a whisper, nearing tears, and reluctant to pull away. Unable to face the look of contempt awaiting her even as she wondered why those scornful blue eyes made her so weak.
"The worst," Anna asserted cruelly, still struggling to catch her breath, but making no effort to pull out of their embrace. And then in a strangled voice she uttered, "But so am I."
A/N: To be continued in the next chapter, "Lover." I might also add a couple more chapters to the intended three. Feedback is welcome.