Jocelyn has been watching Maggie follow the path of the sun's light across the room. She doesn't think Maggie is aware herself that she is doing it. As the light's changed, she has shifted in her seat. Leant out further over the armrest. Braced her foot on the floor and slid the chair back a little, leaving a ruck in the rug. She moves heedlessly, still chatting or listening, asking about Jocelyn's plans.
Maggie may be unaware, but Jocelyn notices. She notices how the light glints in her hair, and honeys her skin. Though she can't see it, she remembers how evening sunlight shows up freckles that have already been darkening all spring. Maggie tans early and easily. Jocelyn knows its fanciful, but she can't help thinking of the sun deliberately seeking Maggie out, too, and marking her - as if to say: this one is made for the summer; this one belongs to me. Maggie looks right in the sunlight. Jocelyn longs to touch her sun-warmed skin.
When the light fades entirely Jocelyn is half afraid that Maggie will slip out with it. She stops herself from calling out when Maggie makes a move towards the French windows, and is relieved when she simply tugs the curtains closed and disappears into the kitchen.
Jocelyn stretches and rises to follow. First though, she crosses to where Maggie was just standing and reaches behind the curtain to turn the key firmly in the lock. Then she takes a moment to straighten the room and to gather herself. She decides to leave Maggie's chair where it is. Perhaps she'll pioneer some experimental new kind of Feng Shui based on natural light and good conversation. Will the furniture have to be moved by a bossy Good Samaritan for the flow of energy to work, she wonders. Or just by the person you love? She can't separate the two. Maybe when she's gone her new school of philosophy will schism over it.
There's an unexpectedly bright glow from the kitchen. Jocelyn is still half caught in her playful daydream, and for one wild moment she imagines that Maggie has somehow carried the sunlight with her. But it is only, of course, that Maggie has turned on the overhead light with which Jocelyn herself so seldom bothers.
Small things like this have been catching Jocelyn off-guard all evening. She finds she likes it. She wants very desperately to start getting used to strange lights and wrinkles in the rugs.
In the kitchen Maggie has made herself at home. She says something teasing about a crossword. She sets about making tea. Jocelyn feels no shame at all in simply watching her and letting her own thoughts run free. Since she's decided to seduce Maggie tonight anyway this indulgence seems a very minor act of hedonism.
The bright light helps her eyes. There are creases in Maggie's trousers at the backs of her knees, and in her untucked linen shirt. She often looks rather rumpled at the end of an intrepid day of simply being Maggie. Jocelyn finds it endearing. More than endearing, truthfully. There have been a few evenings through the years when she's been driven to distraction by it. Hot nights when Maggie has sat in Jocelyn's garden with her shirtsleeves pushed back, loose trousers rolled up to her knees - from paddling or walking across the sand - and left that way through indifference. Jocelyn can never keep from thinking how easy it would be to peel her clothes away entirely when they seem so inessential.
She realises Maggie has been saying something. It's a simple question, but when Maggie asks her what she wants Jocelyn finds she can't wait any more. Keeping the conversation light, she covers the ground between them til they are close enough to touch. The kitchen's not nearly big enough for Jocelyn to tell Maggie a fraction of the things she wants now that she's allowed herself to want them. It doesn't matter. The most important thing is to know what Maggie wants. Declaring one's love is not the same thing as having it reciprocated.
"You. I want you, Jocelyn."
Jocelyn kisses her. She kisses her again and again. Maggie kisses her back. Her mouth is fierce and demanding and Jocelyn surrenders. ("I want you, Jocelyn.") She surrenders to her own desires and stops trying to hold anything back for fear of overwhelming Maggie. ("I want you, Jocelyn.") Maggie can hold her own.
In fact, it is Jocelyn herself who breaks the kiss. She doesn't mean to. She's not quite ready to pull away even though she knows there are things to be said. To her own surprise she fumbles and breaks the moment because she is smiling too much. She'd expected to be more nervous. It's a long time since she's touched a woman like this. But she isn't nervous at all. She is tense with desire and happier than she ever remembers feeling. Perhaps there's simply no room for anything else.
She looks up hoping to communicate this to Maggie and finds that Maggie is grinning too. Or maybe just laughing at Jocelyn. Her face is full of mischief.
"This is going to be fun," Maggie teases, like a co-conspirator. Like somebody in perfect command of the whole situation and of herself. The liar. Jocelyn's damned if she's going to let her get away with that.
Very deliberately, she strokes the back of her hand against Maggie's trails her fingertips along her jaw and then turns her attention to the exposed skin at the neck of her shirt. She has imagined this many times. Maggie's collar is open wide, like always, exposing the skin there as though daring Jocelyn to take advantage of its vulnerability. (Inevitably, Jocelyn knows, Maggie will have begun the day wearing a scarf. Equally inevitably she will have torn it off unthinkingly in a moment of vexation or boredom, and tied it around the strap of her handbag instead.)
Maggie holds still beneath her touch. Jocelyn watches her own fingers as they move across her skin.
"I want you desperately," she confesses to the hollow of Maggie's throat.
Very deliberately she traces a line from Maggie's jaw, down her neck, along her clavicle. She's rewarded when she hears a sharp catch in Maggie's breath. Jocelyn tries it again. Sure enough, Maggie's breathing shifts and her smile falters. Jocelyn's having some difficulty reading exactly the expression on Maggie's face. It's not one she's had time to learn, but she takes in everything - the tilt of Maggie's head, the quick rise and fall of her chest, the way her fingers clutch at Jocelyn's waist. Well, she's not going to win a Nobel prize for deciphering that.
Stealthily, Jocelyn slips her other hand under Maggie's untucked shirt. Her fingers brush the skin of Maggie's side. Maggie gasps aloud and pulls herself close against Jocelyn's body, and Jocelyn pauses to hold the moment. The feeling of Maggie in her arms, and the idea of what it means are too much to take in all at once. She needs to be careful. Apart from anything else, it's indecorous to undress a houseguest in one's kitchen. For some reason, she hears that last thought in Maggie's voice, though Maggie has not spoken. ("You. I want you, Jocelyn.")
She longs to press a kiss to Maggie's jaw, to nuzzle and taste her skin. And so much more than that. But not here.
"Come upstairs." she whispers. Then, for the first time all night, Jocelyn feels a trill of doubt. Can she possibly have misread Maggie? "If you want... I mean if..."
Maggie rolls her eyes and leads the way.