To say dating Sadie had been a paradigm shift was to oversimplify the matter. To be with her meant to enact all the little rituals and practices Cassandra had seen others doing all the time, but were still foreign to her. Even after the months going out, she was almost never the one to initiate physical contact. She didn't dislike it, of course, but it was always Sadie taking her hand or going in for kisses. Then there were Sadie's friends from school, who were always nice enough, but made Cassandra anxious, thanks to her struggles communicating. It was just the two of them that Saturday night, sitting at a cheesesteak truck across the street from the movie theater.
"You know what's another great thing about you?" Sadie said, licking a wandering drop of cheese sauce from her hand. "You never gripe to me about doing stuff like this."
"Like what?" Cassandra said.
"I used to date this girl, Mel, have I told you about Mel?"
"Once or twice. Small things."
"She hated when I wanted get stuff like this. She was always on some kinda polenta or vitamin water or cactus juice diet. I never ate as much blobby yeast as I did in those three months." Sadie took a big bite out of the hoagie. "Seriously, why don't you ever have any stories like that for me? How have you never dated anyone?"
"I thought I liked someone in Smallville once," Cassandra said, sipping from a bottle of water. "I did like him, just not like you."
"What the heck were you doing all the way out in Smallville? Did you have family out there or something?"
"Something."
Wish a last bite, Sadie finished the cheesesteak, balled up the aluminum it had been served on and tossed it toward a nearby garbage can. It hit the rim but fell to the outside, Sadie sighing to drop it in properly. "Okay, here's the deal, Miss short answer and mysterious, I need to know something else about you before we go see this flick." Her tone was tough but playful.
Cassandra frowned as she digested the thought, taking a bite of her own nearly finished sandwich. "What do you need?"
"You know what, bad phrasing, I'm sorry. I need to know anything else about you before we go in."
"I don't understand."
"I've known you for almost a year or something now, we've been dating for six months, and I there's a whole bunch of stuff about you I don't know. You're adopted, you're Catholic, you're homeschooled, talking is hard, you're really nice and really cute. That averages out to, like, one thing for each month we've been going out, and I probably knew three or four of those things within the first hour I knew you and we were running out of a subway tunnel."
Cassandra sighed. "My life is just…" she paused, grappling with whether to allude to the truth or lie entirely and how she would do either. Finally, she just decided on, "boring."
"But there's gotta be something you can just tell me about real fast. I dunno, tell me about you and Bruce."
"Bruce?"
"Yeah. How old were you when he adopted you?"
Cassandra bit her lip, deciding to give her first welcoming into his ranks instead of her legal adoption. It took a few seconds of finger counting and memory before she said, "Fourteen."
"That's pretty old to be taken in, most people are usually looking for little kids. Guess he did adopt your brothers when they were already older too… how did that not get any publicity? I remember my brother talking about the news when he took in Dick Grayson. Thought the city's favorite playboy would get some attention trying to take you home with him."
"It wasn't… I wasn't in an orphanage," Cassandra said. "He took me when I ran from my first father. He was a bad man, with many enemies."
Sadie's face was softened by surprise. "Six months and I think that's the first time I've ever heard you talk about one of your birth parents. Enemies as in supervillains, or enemies as in loan sharks?"
"Loan sharks," Cassandra said. The response was a fast one, possibly incriminating in another scenario, but Sadie didn't seem to think much of it.
"And your mom just wasn't in the picture?"
"Never has been."
"You don't have to tell me any more about that," Sadie said. "Bruce just must mean a lot to you then. Just seems like a weird thought. Bruce Wayne just seems like he'd either be loopy or a hardass all the time."
"It is different from others I see and know. We do not talk often, I do not ask for much. But he drives me to church, takes me out to breakfast, some nights we go walking together."
"Huh… all right, that counts," Sadie said. "We can go in now."
Cassandra wasn't especially good at following along with films while they were watching them. That was all right, she liked to hear Sadie laugh when someone did something funny or lean closer for sweet moments. It wasn't always easy for her to keep up, but it was always worth it. The two proceeded into theater 9 to see First Time for Everything.
However, something was obviously different that night. Despite her initially sweet position with her arms wrapped around Cassie, Sadie had started to slump about forty five minutes in, occasionally mumbling, "this is boring" or "this sucks." After the first hour of the movie, she followed with, "All right, this movie's a bust, not enough crazy for me. Everyone's being so selfish and dumb. Really a crapshoot on flicks like this."
"Should we go?" Cassandra said.
"I dunno. You did pay for us to sit through this whole thing… the place is practically empty, let me at least make this more interesting." As Sadie spoke, she began twisting a few of the locks at the opposite side of Cassandra's head with one of her fingers. Cassandra looked in the direction, but Sadie kept at it. "Do you trust me?" she said.
"Trust you with what?" Cassandra said.
"I just mean it in general. Do you trust me?"
"I trust you."
"Alright. Sit still for me." In the dark of the movie theater Sadie nuzzled up to her.
Something, Cassandra wasn't sure what, began rubbing up the side of her neck. Whatever it was, it was warm and wet, she shuddered at the feeling. "What was that?"
"Don't worry about it," Sadie whispered. Cassandra turned to look at her as Sadie began first licking, then sucking on the side of her neck. With each action it took Cassandra a split second to regain her composure. First the bottom of the neck, then up toward her chin. Cassandra was fighting a moan: everything felt wonderful, was Sadie just going to keep at it? And yet she was grappling with how much she wanted her to continue. With her whole body overcome with goosebumps and more shaking, Cassandra didn't want her to stop, wanted to plead with her to continue, yet couldn't overcome a feeling Sadie shouldn't be doing what she was. Still, she said nothing.
With two fingers, Sadie peeled back Cassandra's T-shirt just a little, leaned in and sucked at the base of her neck. Cassandra squeezed the armrest of her chair and a tiny moan finally escaped. There came a tiny bite and an instant of ecstasy before Sadie let up, smirking toward her.
"That's gonna leave a mark for a little bit. Maybe don't let your dad see," Sadie said.
There was a moment Cassandra wasn't sure what to do. She remained rooted in her chair, a million thoughts running through her head as her body struggled to return to equilibrium. But the moment passed so quickly Sadie certainly wouldn't notice, and she leaned in, their lips locking as all else around Cassandra slowly returned after a momentary disappearance.
The two held hands and continued giving kisses on the cheeks and lips for the duration of the movie they were barely watching, but Cassandra was still struggling with what had just happened. It felt amazing, maybe unlike anything she'd ever known before.
So why did it also feel like there was a pit growing in her stomach?
