Something Good

Part 6: One Step Forward

A/N: Thank you guys for reading and reviewing! If you haven't reviewed yet, please feel free to drop a comment and let me know what you like about this story, as well as any suggestions you may have. I also realized one of the mistakes in the last chapter was the link I posted at the end. So, if you want to watch the video I referenced about arousal nonconcordance, you can just youtube search "Ted Talk the truth about unwanted arousal".

We are officially halfway through this story, and it's about to heat up. For the most part, every chapter from now on will feature explicit sexual content. Please feel free to let me know if there is something specific you would like to see!

I need to add both a disclaimer that I do not own SVU or its characters and a TRIGGER WARNING to anyone who is especially sensitive to the subjects of sexual assault and explicit sex. ANGST TO COME!

Amanda sighed as Olivia's lips danced down her neck and across her collarbone. The brunette looked swiftly up at her girlfriend's face to make sure she was still in acceptable territory, and after a quick nod from the blonde, she resumed her previous actions as they lied in bed together.

It had been a little over a month since the two had created their poster, and they were moving "yellows" over to the green side almost daily. Neither had brought up touches in the red column, but they were still making incremental progress, which both women knew was the best type of progress when it came to re-learning (or learning) safe touch.

On this particular day, after working almost twenty-four hours non-stop, they had both come home and slept for a likely unreasonable amount of time. When they woke up recharged, Amanda had suggested they spend some time working on physical intimacy. Olivia was happy to oblige.

The police sergeant's lips travelled back up to where Amanda most wanted them. They kissed for several moments, the blonde eventually pulling away slightly. "I love you," Amanda whispered, so close that Olivia could feel the words against her lips.

"I love you too," the brunette promised softly before pressing her lips against Amanda's once more. This time it was the normally very careful Olivia who decided to deepen the kiss, allowing her tongue to protrude beyond her lips only slightly, just enough for Amanda to get the message.

The detective gleefully accepted the invitation to kiss more passionately, and though the kiss was deeper, it retained slow and languid properties, almost like a well-choreographed dance. Olivia felt Amanda's hands weave into her hair and hummed in contentment. Liv had so missed experiencing this kind of intimacy. It had been years since she had pursued anything more than a one night stand, and it's not like she did that much either. She had always believed that kissing someone you loved had the potential to be more intimate than casual sex. Of course, she knew that casual sex had its place, and she would be the first to admit that, but just being this close to Amanda felt more special, more vulnerable even, like a different kind of naked.

Amanda felt Olivia wavering in the fervency with which she was moving against her, so she reluctantly pulled their lips apart. "Liv, are you okay?"

Olivia smiled softly, letting the fingernails of her right hand lightly scratch Amanda's side. "Yeah, I'm good," she assured, realizing her girlfriend had felt her become absent, "just thinking about how grateful I am to be able to do this with you."

Amanda smiled in return, but her features also expressed regret. "Me too, Liv. I'm sorry it's taken this long."

Olivia shushed her with a gentle finger to her lips. "That's not what I meant, baby. You know I'm in no rush. Your pace is our pace."

The blonde nodded. "I'm still sorry." She gestured for Olivia to move from her position semi on top of her, and the sergeant obeyed, hoping Amanda wasn't beginning to feel self-conscious.

"Are you okay?" Olivia echoed her girlfriend's earlier question. "I am grateful we can do this now, but I wasn't upset when we couldn't." She flopped herself over that so they were both lying prone, side by side.

Amanda shook her head. Olivia wasn't getting the point. "I know you're not upset. I'm upset. I just keep thinkin' about the lost time. This. Being together," she stressed, "it just feels right. And I know that the more we practice and the more intimate we get, it's just going to feel better and better. Liv, I'm just afraid that after all this, when we finally get…there"—she gestured vaguely with her hands—"and the world doesn't end for me, and everything goes perfectly fine, that I'm gonna think, 'why couldn't we have been doin' this all along?'" She sighed, rolling herself so that she hovered slightly over her girlfriend. "Does that make any sense at all?"

Olivia reached out to caress Amanda's bare arm with the knuckles of her right hand, tucking a stray strand of hair behind the blonde's ear with her left. "Of course it does. And it doesn't help that this is getting easier for us, but 'Manda, you deserve time. It's not lost. It's yours. There's absolutely no reason for us to rush into having sex and risk hurting the progress we've made in the past month. That's how I see it," was her disclaimer as she gently guided Amanda into resting her head on her chest, "but from what you're saying, I get the sense that you see it differently, and I hear you, I do. But can I ask you a question about this?"

The younger woman looked up at Olivia for a moment before nodding hesitantly. "I don't want you to censor yourself here and I don't want you to think I'm judging you for feeling the way you do," she coaxed, running a hand up and down Amanda's back slowly. "I'm just trying to understand your thoughts on this." Amanda nodded expectantly. "Is there any part of you that is wanting to speed up this process because you think it will make me happy to just be able to have sex?" The brunette didn't want to have to ask this question, and more than that, she didn't want to hear the answer. She knew to an expert degree the effect that long-lasting sexual trauma could have on the psyche. And though the relationships that Amanda had been in before her were arguably not quite abusive, it was clear that if her sexual needs with her old boyfriends weren't being met, then her emotional needs certainly weren't. All of her childhood, Amanda watched her mother use "sex" as a bartering tool—as in, "you can have your way with me, just please don't let the girls see the bruises"— and she had spent the better part of her adult life having sex exclusively for other people. Her entire view of the experience was skewed by trauma, and it would take more than a few comforting phrases on Olivia's part to put the pieces of the puzzle in the right spots.

Amanda wriggled herself out of Olivia's arms in order to sit up and maintain better eye contact with her girlfriend who remained on her back. "Well, won't it? Make you happy, I mean," she prodded after a moment.

Olivia reached out a hand and placed it carefully on Amanda's knee. She had a feeling this was the reason for the blonde being anxious about the speed of their progress. A nauseated sensation started in her belly and made its way up her esophagus, landing in the back of her throat. She frowned momentarily as she searched for the right words to convey her thoughts in a calm and rational manner.

Amanda immediately knew she had made a mistake. She'd just accused Olivia of the worst thing the SVU sergeant could possibly be accused of. She basically had just told Olivia fucking Benson that she believed she'd be happy to have sex with Amanda, even if she knew she wasn't yet ready. She told her that she'd be happy to take advantage of the blonde in a vulnerable position, that she'd be happy to—

"Amanda." It was as if Olivia could read her mind and wanted to stop her emotional spinning, like a top clunking its way down a spiral staircase, taking several hits along the way. The brunette physically couldn't stay lying in the bed anymore. She sat up, crossing her legs like a pretzel and facing Amanda directly so that their knees touched. "Are you in the right headspace to hear the most important thing I'll probably ever tell you?"

Olivia's voice was tender and gentle, but the words she used caused Amanda's eyes to grow wide, and she couldn't stop a tear or two from escaping her eyes or the panicked croak of "I'm sorry." It was the only thing that came to mind other than "I know what I did."

If it were possible, Olivia's features would have lowered farther in desperation. "Baby, I don't want you to be sorry. That's the point," she slowly explained, deciding not to reach out her hands in comfort. Initiating any touch while Amanda felt this helpless would be wrong.

Amanda was confused, and in her fear, Olivia noted she looked almost childlike. "But I don't understand. What do you want me to be? I want to do what you want."

The brunette swallowed thickly, barely able to resist the urge to wipe the tears from the blonde's eyes and hardly able to keep her own threatening tears at bay. She reminded herself that this was often the nature of the healing process—one step forward and two steps back. "I don't want you to be anything," she tried, noticing the phrasing of it didn't sound quite as compassionate as she'd hoped. "I want you to be safe," was her next attempt, and after observing some relief wash over Amanda's eyes, she hopped onto that train. "I want you to know that you deserve so much more than what you've gotten in life, and your body and spirit deserve to be treated with more respect than you will ever realize. I want you to afford yourself the compassion and patience that you are entitled to, but mostly," she managed to choke out, "mostly, I want you to know that your sense of safety means more to me than anything else in the entire world, and I want you to know that I'd wait forever for you to be ready, and I still wouldn't go anywhere. Because the only way having sex with you would make me happy is if it made you happy too."

A wave of understanding smacked Amanda upside the head like a brick as she vaguely registered Olivia's phone vibrating, which the sergeant purposefully ignored. The blonde couldn't stop herself from reaching out to graze Olivia's stern features with each of her fingers. The older woman's eyes glistened with unshed tears and her lips parted with unspoken words. Amanda let the palm of her hand rest against Olivia's cheek and watched as she closed her eyes, letting one tear travel the length of her face.

It was the sound of Amanda swallowing hard that caused Olivia's eyes to open. Still, she did not speak, wanting to allow her girlfriend to process the meaning of the promises she had just made. "Olivia, I…" The blonde thought for a moment, dropping her hand from the brunette's cheek and letting it rest on her shoulder, fingering pieces of brown hair. "I know that," she vowed, aware her words didn't make sense. "I know it, but still I don't," she explained. "And you're not the problem. God, you could never be the problem. Liv"—Amanda sighed deeply, settling further onto her knees—"you make me feel so safe. Safer than I've ever felt in my entire life. But I'm broken."

Olivia shook her head in response, not wanting Amanda to believe such a thing about herself. "I am," the detective insisted. "I'm broken. And that doesn't mean I can't be fixed. But the time it takes…Mm. Sweetheart, it is not your responsibility to fix me, and when I regress, that's not your fault either. It's part of the process."

"Part of the process," Olivia echoed back in a whisper. She understood what Amanda was saying, and she even agreed with it. But if Amanda's subconscious thoughts about their relationship were as bad as she thought they were, they had taken more than two steps back. "I want—" she shook her head again—"I need you to believe that I would never, never," she emphasized, "touch you or want to…"

Amanda effectively hushed her by tenderly grabbing both sides of Olivia's face. She couldn't bare to listen to her finish. The blonde knew she had caused the pain in the brunette's voice, even if she hadn't meant to, and her heart throbbed. "I'm not afraid of you," she promised. "I…I'm sort of just afraid in general." The blonde felt the thrumming in her chest slow, and calm settled over her. "All of this has just been overwhelming, and there's been lots of feeling. I want this for myself too, Liv, but I do also want to make you happy. And not because I think you'll leave me if I don't put out or because I think you'll take advantage of the situation as soon as there's even a part of me that thinks I'm ready. Trust me, babe. I know you. I wouldn't put it past you to bring home a lie detector test." Olivia laughed quickly before pressing her lips to one of the palms occupying her face. "I want to make you happy because I love you, and I'm still working on believing I can do that without disrespecting my boundaries. Just bear with me until I get there."

The brunette nodded, scooting as close to Amanda as she could, cradling her face in her hands in the same way the younger woman had just done with her. "I'm happy now," she reassured. "And I'm happy to do this the right way, with patience and care. I want to have sex with you, believe me I want to. But I want to have sex with you, and not a moment before you're entirely ready." She rested her forehead against her girlfriend's and spoke slowly, meaningfully. "I do not care how long it takes."

Amanda's phone sprung to life at that moment, and the blonde pulled away from her girlfriend's touch. Olivia had put hers on vibrate, but Amanda had decided to be semi-responsible before they'd gone to bed the night before. The blonde's eyes darted to her bedside table and then back to Olivia's gaze. She didn't want to interrupt the important conversation the two were having, but if both the sergeant and the detective were being called, it was clearly a pressing matter. Olivia nodded to Amanda, letting her know she should pick up the phone.

"It's Barba," she told Olivia, removing the device from the charger. "Rollins."

"Rollins, are you with Liv?" the ADA asked.

"Yeah, why?" Amanda linked her fingers with Olivia's as she spoke, wanting to communicate to her that she was okay and that she trusted her.

"I called her twice and she didn't pick up," Barba explained. "It just wasn't like her is all."

"Her phone was on vibrate and we were talking. What's up?" she inquired, changing the subject.

Olivia rubbed circles into Amanda's hand with her thumb as she watched her listen, unable to hear Barba's words.

"No." Amanda was clearly shocked at something.

"What? No way! He broke into her dorm room and held her down. Didn't you see the bruises on her wrists—that is not rape three!"

Olivia frowned. She knew how often rape cases were pled out, and more so, how often survivors got less justice than they deserved.

"Rafael, that's a class D felony. He won't even get five years!"

An uneasy pause as Amanda listened. "Well, what does Francesca want to do?"

The blonde's eyes met Olivia's, and the sergeant gave her a sad smile. "Of course she doesn't want to testify." Amanda pinched the bridge of her nose. "If you don't give Blake this deal, what do you think the chances of a conviction are?"

Olivia continued to watch Amanda's reactions as she listened and spoke. She could pretty much tell exactly what their ADA was saying just by observing Amanda's face. "Barba, this is a shit deal, and you know it."

The tightened features of her face softened after a moment, and she felt Olivia's hand move to her back, giving her support. "No, of course I understand. Yes, it's better than nothin'. Okay, yeah, I'll tell her."

When Amanda hung up, Olivia wouldn't have been surprised if she had flung her phone across the room. "Damn defense attorney wouldn't agree to anything more than rape three," she explained.

Olivia nodded, letting her hand rest in Amanda's hair. "I'm so sorry, 'Manda. I know how invested you are in this case."

Amanda continued as if Olivia hadn't spoken. "Classic 'he said, she said.' Barba didn't think there was any chance for a conviction at this point. He had a key, and apparently to a jury, that means 'come on in any time, and fuck me against my will while you're at it!' They never would have believed a Latina immigrant who was dating her attacker."

Amanda shook her head once more, letting the feeling that nothing she did was ever truly enough wash over her painfully.

One step forward, two steps back.

They managed to regain that step about a week later, when Amanda found herself empowered to gather information about her personal next steps. "Hey, Liv?" she greeted as the brunette stepped into their bedroom. Olivia eyed the piece of poster board in front of her, immediately noting it was their "Green, Yellow, Red" list.

"What's up?" she asked, placing the mug of tea she had gotten for Amanda on her bedside table and sitting down next to her, directing her attention to the words in front of her.

"Do you have any…uh…tips for when I decide to try this particular activity again?"

Olivia's eyes traveled down to where the blonde was pointing, to the space in-between the yellow and red columns where Amanda had clearly only recently written the phrase "touch myself" in orange sharpie, as if the poster was a venn diagram.

The brunette admired the honesty behind Amanda labelling it "not quite yellow and not quite red" and smiled softly, taking the poster gently from her and setting it down on the ground out of the way of where they walked. Olivia adjusted the positioning of her body so that she was facing Amanda better, reaching out to take one of her hands in her own.

Amanda literally looked like she was trying to suck her blush back in, and though she didn't like how she felt in the moment, she didn't regret asking the question. She knew they wouldn't likely get further together until Amanda did some work on her own. She was willing to do her part, but she definitely needed a path to follow.

"Thank you for asking me that," was what Liv decided to start with. If someone had told Amanda ten years ago that's she'd one day be attempting to casually discuss best practices for masturbation with Olivia Benson, she probably would have had a heart attack.

"I, um," Amanda tried to reply, "I'm just lookin' for roadmap type things."

Olivia nodded. "I have some ideas; do you feel like you're ready to hear them?"

"Mhm." Amanda felt her face flush even more. "I know my heart is beatin' fast, and I'm probably redder than Clifford, but I do really want to talk about this."

"It's okay," Olivia laughed softly at her girlfriend's joke. "I know your body is just trying to keep you safe. I'll listen to your words," she promised.

Amanda smiled awkwardly, taking a deep breath in preparation for what genuinely felt like a new frontier. "So, where do I start?"

Olivia sighed deeply, squeezing Amanda's hand within her own. "Well, I would say step one is lube. Like a lot of it. You can't have too much lube."

Amanda groaned softly. "I don't even know anything about lube," she huffed.

Olivia smiled. "That's okay. I can order some off of amazon for us. No rush to use it, but we can keep it in your cabinet." She gestured to the nightstand by Amanda's side of the bed.

"Alright, so I have lube." Amanda sat up farther, appreciating the feel of Olivia's hand wrapped around hers. Her touch was so grounding, Amanda couldn't imagine a situation in which having physical contact with Olivia wouldn't make things better. "What next?"

"There's very little research on female masturbation," Olivia explained, "because—"

Amanda nodded. "No need to elaborate on that one. I live in our society."

Olivia shrugged in agreement. "But, I stumbled upon a sex therapist with a method for exploring what feels right a few years ago, and I kind of like the way it works."

Amanda smirked. "Not Mindy again."

"No, not Mindy," Olivia assured with a sly smile. "It's kind of like Goldilocks, experimenting with different things one at a time until they are just right. You're not going over the rainbow, just kind of casually hanging out on it. Usually it's supposed to be done with you by yourself, but if you would feel more comfortable with me being there or with me touching you, I'm okay with changing it a bit, even if it makes it slightly more complicated. The most important thing is that you feel safe.

"I mean, I wanna try it. But I still don't get how it works."

"I'm okay with giving you more details, love, I just wanted to check in first. I know sometimes you can get overwhelmed with all of this."

Amanda nodded. "Thank you for checking in." She took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm good. I'm ready to listen." The blonde didn't add this part aloud, but she could listen to Olivia talk about literally anything, and she could listen to her talk about it forever. Sing the alphabet? Oh yeah! Recite the contacts from her phone? Bring it on! Advice on how to have your first orgasm? Sure, why not?! "Here, I'll even start for you. Step one is lube!"

Olivia chuckled lightly for a moment. "Step one is lube," she agreed. "So, do you remember when I told you that different people like different types of pressure and speed?" Amanda nodded. "So basically, what you're going to do is figure that out for yourself. And something important to be aware of is—well, the clit is really finicky and doesn't like to be touched before you're really turned on. I think that's why you were hurting last time. Which brings me to one more thing before I get back on the Goldilocks train—if something hurts, please stop. You shouldn't feel pain unless you want to."

"I don't want to," Amanda provided.

"That's what I figured." Olivia nodded, curling one leg under another to adjust her body into a more comfortable position. "Lube is going to help with that issue, okay?"

Amanda nodded, a furious blush forming on her face as a thought struck her. "The getting turned on thing, sometimes that happens when we kiss."

Olivia smiled, her knuckles softly caressing an apple-red cheek. "That's only a bad thing if you're not comfortable with it."

"I'm comfortable with it," Amanda assured. "It feels nice, warm and safe."

The blonde had certainly never associated the words "warm" and "safe" with sexual stimuli before and knowing this, Olivia couldn't help but beam with pride. Amanda was making progress, and even if she didn't think it was happening fast enough, this was proof that slow and steady wins the race.

"Okay, back to Goldilocks." Amanda wanted Olivia to share whatever she thought would be useful, but she had felt lost on this journey (sometimes just lost, period) for so long, that the thought of being handed a map by someone she felt so extraordinarily safe with was so unbelievably exciting, she just felt compelled to keep her girlfriend on track.

"Back to Goldilocks. Okay, so generally you should start by figuring out if you like direct pressure or indirect pressure. I'll share that I like direct pressure, but everyone is different. To figure it out, you'll take one or two fingers, lube 'em up, and start making wide circles around your clit, making them more and more tight and then back out again, until you figure out what you like best."

"And don't do it unless I'm turned on." Amanda let herself reflect these things aloud to Olivia, almost willing herself to become comfortable discussing it. Because she probably should be able to talk about it if she intended to do it.

Olivia nodded. "Next is the amount of pressure…"

Amanda found herself interrupting the older woman. "I'm guessing this is like Goldilocks sitting in the chairs. I don't want to break the small chair, but if it's too big, I'm not even going to feel it." The blonde saw the amused look Olivia was giving her. "Goldilocks was my favorite story as a kid," she explained with a light laugh. 'It's an appropriate metaphor."

"Yes, so after you figure out what chair you like," Olivia continued after a momentary smile at Amanda being Amanda, "you work on speed. Some people like fast. Some people like slow. Some like somewhere in the middle. And then you kind of put them together. That should be your personal algorithm for experiencing pleasure." The brunette was proud of herself for the speech she was giving. She thanked her lucky stars that she had a fairly impressive memory and hoped the thoughts she was expressing were translating well.

Amanda processed for a moment, taking mental notes as Olivia observed her girlfriend. The brunette could see her absorbing copious amounts of information, but somehow, she seemed genuinely nonchalant about it. The younger woman's blush had faded and the shortness of breath in her voice had vanished. She was speaking calmly and seemed to be thinking rationally. She clearly felt safe. "So," Amanda concluded aloud, "Lube. Circles. Pressure. Speed." She paused. "Liftoff."

Both women laughed at the joke. "I honestly," Amanda pondered after a moment, "think I can do that." She paused again. "What's next? Give me more."

Olivia had never seen Amanda so enthusiastic about this. For some time, she had almost seemed dutiful, like the poster and the exercises were a job, something she had to do, and not something she got to work on towards a worthwhile goal. Something about this conversation had impacted Amanda, had given her…well, liftoff.

Olivia thought for a moment. "Hmm. How do you feel about talking about the experience of orgasm itself?"

Amanda nodded. She hadn't even thought about this question. She fought back a yawn as she asked, "What does it feel like?"

Olivia noticed her girlfriend getting tired, but she was clearly still invested in their conversation. "It's kind of hard to explain," the brunette admitted, "but what you should expect is to feel good and for it to feel better and better and get more intense until it reaches a culminating point where all that tension is released, and then your body should come down. Though I will tell you, not everyone has mindboggling orgasms, especially at first, because it's a skill your body has to learn."

Amanda was not impressed. "So you're telling me, after all this shit, that my pot of gold is going to be unremarkable."

"I definitely didn't say 'unremarkable'," the older woman argued lightly. "To be honest, there's no way to predict that kind of thing because like I said before, everyone is different. But when we're together, I'm going to walk you through all of it. You don't have to experience it without me there if you don't want to. I also want to say, and I'll probably remind you-afterwards you may be really sensitive. That happens to some people. I might not be able to tell, so if I'm still touching you and it doesn't feel good, just push me away. I won't be offended."

Olivia noticed Amanda being quiet for a minute. "What's on your mind?" she prompted.

Amanda sighed, a new type of anxiety working its way through her body. "It's just now occurring to me that returning the favor is a thing. And how am I going to know what you want?"

"You're going to know what I want the same way I'll know what you want—I'm going to tell you. And you never have to do something you don't feel ready for."

"Communication is important, huh?"

"Oh yeah." Olivia reached out once more to squeeze Amanda's thigh as a reminder that they were in this together. "'Manda, I'm going to do everything I can to take care of you, emotionally and physically, but you have to ask for what you need. I know that's easier said than done, but it's so important, and it's something we can practice in everyday life."

Amanda took a deep breath. She knew there was a lot of intensity coming her way.

One step at a time.

A/N: Just a heads up, I plan to next update on Thursday or Friday night. Thank you for your patience with this update. I know it took longer than usual.

I also want to give a little credit (well a lot of credit) to Vanessa Marin, who is a sex therapist with some pretty cool online courses. I learned about her a while ago, and I think the things she teaches are so important! I stole the Goldilocks method from her (and yes, it works!)

Google 'Vanessa Marin therapy'.

See you guys next time!

-Gabby