Author's Note: I have finally decided on a complete direction for this story and that's the reason for the name change. Also, a trigger warning ahead. It's not pleasant and was extremely difficult to write but important to Johanna's character for the remainder of this story. I apologize if it offends, I hope it doesn't. I will do her justice, I promise. I also promise not to be this dark in the future.
Like the great Wynonna Judd says, "When you hit rock bottom, you've got two ways to go: Straight up, or sideways."
Johanna had a hard time remembering the last time she had climbed a fence of any sort. As a child she had loved to climb the trees in her backyard; she and some early childhood friends would have races to see who could climb to the top the fastest. Johanna rarely lost on account of being smaller than everyone and scaling trees came as easily to her as breathing. This vine-covered trellis on the side of Katniss's house was a bit more difficult.
Music played constantly in Johanna's head, whether it was consciously or not. Mostly it was either the last song she had heard, or some foreign strain she would try and remember to record or right down. And sometimes, like that moment, it was a relevant tune like a soundtrack to her life. Tonight it was the hard snare and guitar combination of Melissa Etheridge's "Come To My Window." Appropriate and a little funny. Johanna kept climbing.
The night sky looked like the squalid lake she and Katniss had sat in front of a few days earlier, falling asleep under the stars. Tonight the stars were hidden behind a white sheen of wispy clouds as Johanna let out a grunt and placed her sneaker on the trellis. It was like something out of a story book or a country song; when Katniss returned home in the early morning after their night in the back of the truck, Mrs. Everdeen was, well, as angry as Mrs. Everdeen gets. As Katniss told it, it was kind of like watching a pot of water boil. She grounded Katniss for three weeks, only allowing her to leave the house to take Prim to ballet lessons and to see Gale. She was forbidden to see Johanna in an agreement with which Polly had reluctantly agreed. Instead of abiding by this, Johanna was scaling the wall of the Everdeen house in an attempt to get to Katniss's bedroom.
She hoisted herself below the window and gave it a few raps as she held onto the windowsill. Her hands were white from the paint residue on the side of house as she waited impatiently for Katniss to come to the pane. The brunette appeared and smiled, unlocking the window and pushing up the screen. The waft of warm summer air hit her in the face as she grinned at the sweating face of her girlfriend.
"Isn't this romantic? It's like Romeo and Juliet." Johanna groaned in displeasure at the comparison and hoisted herself up, crawling through the open window and on to Katniss's floor. She brushed off her jeans and gave Katniss a once over. "Jo-meo and Juliet." Katniss grinned even wider. "Romeo and Jo-liet." She giggled quietly to herself.
Johanna put her hands on her hips and jutted it out to the side. Her eyes narrowed perceptibly at the taller girl. "If I wasn't so intent on keeping quiet I would be tickling you right now." With a fond smile she kissed Katniss sweetly, holding her face between her hands. "Besides, that's a horrible comparison. They kill themselves over a relationship they had for like three days. I've sat at red lights for longer than they dated."
Katniss ran her fingers along the collar of Johanna's open plaid shirt, running her fingertips down the soft cotton to Johanna's midsection. She was as in love with Johanna in plaid shirts as Johanna is with her in skirts. Something about how femininely butch Johanna looked in them drove her crazy. She'd wear them buttoned up, open and revealing a tight tank top, sleeves rolled up and sleeves rolled down, and her favorite was after sex when it was just her tiny plaid shirt open, usually revealing both her breasts unabashedly.
In one fell swoop she pushed the shorter girl back on to her mattress. Johanna looked surprised but didn't speak in fear of Mrs. Everdeen or Prim overhearing them. Katniss climbed on top of her, straddling her waist in her tight fitting black cotton shorts. She took Johanna's hands and brought them to her lips, giving them a brief kiss before slamming them back onto the bed.
"What are you doing?" Johanna whispered in a tone thick with arousal. Her heart was still racing from her climb but now the quickened pace was a result of being on the receiving end of a very aggressive Katniss.
"Payback." Her lips immediately sought Johanna's racing pulse point on her neck, lacing wet kisses against the soft skin there. She felt Johanna's heart beat on her tongue and her mouth turned in a smile. Johanna was always so confident and firm in herself that it was totally arousing to be able to unwind her with just a few simple movements of her tongue.
"But your mother, your sister..." Johanna sputtered like an old boat as Katniss continued to move her lips around the extremely sensitive skin of her neck. "They could hear us," she pleaded with Katniss weakly, her resolve dying quickly.
Katniss brought her face up so it was just above Johanna's, her wet lips barely touching the top of the other girl. "Then you'll have to be quiet then, won't you? A little like we're in..." Her challenging gray eyes went to the wall, then back to Johanna with her dark brow arching very slowly. "A library."
"O-oh," Johanna groaned at both the memory and the new contact of Katniss's hands running laps around her stomach and breasts. "That's unfair." It was unfair, yes, but Johanna was not going to complain. She hadn't seen Katniss in over six days and it had been absolute hell. Nothing on this planet paralleled the feeling of Katniss Everdeen's skin against her own, clear gray eyes staring into the brown abyss of hers.
She was certain of one thing: nothing could keep them apart.
When the three weeks came to a close Katniss resumed spending nearly every night at the Mason home tucked away in Johanna's loft with her. Reading, watching television, making love or listening to Johanna play her music. On the nights when Johanna and Finnick worked Katniss stayed home, trying to appease her mother's growing discomfort with how much time she spent with her girlfriend.
It was a delicate balance but one she didn't have to worry about for much longer. In two weeks they'd be back at school and she'd again be spending more time with Prim and more time home with her schoolwork. She couldn't do schoolwork with Johanna because she was ...distracting. Every time she'd sit down to write a paper her girlfriend's arms would somehow find their way around her waist. Her lips would find a way to her skin soon after and then all educational thoughts were thrown out the window.
For now she was content sitting on Johanna's plush bed, absorbing herself in a dystopian novel that Johanna had picked out for her a few days prior. Her girlfriend sat in the corner of her room, headphones on, completely cut off from everything around her. Her brown eyes scrutinizing her fingers as they moved across the guitar's fretboard. The sound was muted and traveled into Johanna's ears, but the deep vibrate of her phone made Katniss look over at her.
Johanna stopped her playing and picked up her phone, reading the message on her screen and tossing it onto her amplifier, annoyed. Whoever had been texting her had done so about ten times since Katniss had arrived. Each time Johanna had ignored him or her and looked even more cross. If it was Finnick surely Johanna would have answered him by now. Jealously Katniss assumed it was someone Johanna had slept with. Some girl who wanted her back or wanted to see her. She wouldn't pry so unfortunately her imagination ran wild.
Polly knocked on the door to Johanna's room and since Johanna was deeply involved in her music Katniss called for her to come in. The woman stepped into the room, smiling affectionately at the girl on her daughter's bed. She was glad that Clara had allowed their daughters to see each other again; Johanna had been a brooding mess the entire three weeks. So much so that Polly pretended not to notice when Johanna would sneak out at night to see Katniss.
Johanna looked up and nodded to her mother, then back down at her hands as she would manipulate a few notes and then furiously scribble them down in a nearby music composition notebook. "I'm going over to the Diamant house for a while, evidently they are not wasting any time since their daughter is leaving for college, and they need me to begin turning her bedroom into another office."
"Another office?" Katniss repeated, placing her book down on the bed. She frowned briefly at her book, realizing she had forgotten to place a bookmark in it, then back up to Johanna's mother.
Polly laughed and nodded her head, adjusting her tool belt around her waist. "Yeah, an additional office. Mr. Diamant is tired of sharing his office with his wife." Her brown eyes rolled in her head and she looked not unlike her daughter in that moment. It made the ends of Katniss's mouth turn upward. "You girls take care, I'll be back late tonight."
Katniss glanced at the alarm clock next to Johanna's bed and shuffled off the comforter. Her movement finally broke Johanna from her concentration and she pulled her headphones around her neck. "You're leaving?"
The brunette nodded her head as she filed her books into her worn canvas backpack that she swung over her shoulder. She tread across the room toward her girlfriend, kissing her gently on the lips. "Yeah, I should get home for dinner." Johanna looked extremely confused, since typically alone time was something they strove to have together. "I'll call you later."
She nodded her head, giving Katniss a small smile as she walked out the door. "Do you want me to drive you home?" Polly asked, leaning her back against the doorjamb of Johanna's room, her arms crossed over her chest.
"No, it's not on your way there," Katniss refused politely. "And it's a nice night. I'd like to walk." Polly followed Katniss down the stairs and out of their home, waving goodbye to the young girl as she climbed into her pick-up truck. Her engine roared down the street as she took off toward First Street and Katniss made her way home.
It had started out as a nice night but as Katniss was crossing Ninth Street she saw the cumulonimbus clouds coagulating across the sky, threatening rain for her walk home. The gray clouds blotted out the twinkle of starlight and in the distance Katniss saw a bright bolt of lightning bear down on the earth and incinerate the ground somewhere. As she skittered across the street to Eleventh the rain began pouring down hard, coating her t-shirt and jeans within just a few seconds.
She usually enjoyed a freak summer thunderstorm, but from the safety of her home or underneath the canopy of a tree. The oppressively large droplets pounded down on her skin and hair, matting everything to her body until she finally reached the front door of her home. A tentative run of her fingers through her hair indicated that she indeed would need to shower to untangle the otherworldly mess her hair had become.
Across town Johanna sat up in her room, one headphone on her ear, the other to the side as she picked apart more notes on her guitar. The rattle of her phone broke her concentration again but this time she hoped it was Katniss so she picked up the sleek mobile and hazarded a glance. It wasn't Katniss. Cashmere had been texting her all night, increasingly furious (and somewhat comical in their over-the-top desperation) messages about not being ignored and wanting to see Johanna again before she left for college.
Johanna was relieved that she was finally going to be rid of the blonde woman. Her entanglement with Cashmere was something that weighed heavily on her during her otherwise light times with Katniss. She knew that her girlfriend was prone to jealousy and having Cashmere always threatening on the periphery of their relationship was not something she wanted.
Her fingers stilled on her guitar as she heard the front door to her house open and close. Whoever it was stayed near the threshold for a few moments, the muffled sounds of fabric shaking floated up toward Johanna's room. Maybe her mother had forgotten something. Footsteps clicked against the hardwood and Johanna's eyes narrowed. That clicking sounded like high heels as far as Johanna could tell. They got louder as the person got closer to her door until they stopped entirely right outside her room.
Johanna's eyes quickly scanned the room for a weapon; a useless endeavor since whoever was standing there was probably female and Johanna felt confident in her ability to take down another woman. She placed her guitar in the stand by her feet and stood as the person opened her door and let herself in. Her pale hands clenched at her sides as she took in the slightly disheveled appearance of Cashmere.
Wicked green eyes took in Johanna with a wide grin. "So this is where you've been hiding, huh? Up in your tower." Cashmere tossed her jacket over a nearby chair, the drenched coat dripping water on Johanna's floor. In spite of the heavy rain coming down outside Cashmere looked insufferably put together, as she always did. A ruffled white skirt that could barely be called a skirt it was so short and a black blouse tucked into it. A few necklaces dangled from her neck and nestled in between her breasts, shining with gold and diamonds.
The blonde girl closed the door behind her, pulling the chair with her coat in front of it. "How the fuck did you get in my house?" Johanna asked, not moving from her stance near her instruments.
Cashmere shrugged and dismissed her inquiry with a wave of her hand. "Your mother always leaves the door unlocked. I remember that from our days during church." Johanna's penetrating gaze drooped to the ground as she guiltily recalled all the Sundays she spent with Cashmere in her bed. At the time trading mass for sex seemed like the most fruitful solution to her aversion to religion, but now she regretted it. It only seemed to further Cashmere's misguided notions that they had something in common other than sex.
"Okay, then why the fuck are you in my house? I think I made it perfectly clear by ignoring you that I don't want to see you anymore. Ever. Like in life." Her arms crossed defensively over her chest, attempting to hide her intense trepidation about having Cashmere in her room. What if Katniss came back to surprise her and found Cashmere in here? She'd think they were fooling around; she already left in a weird mood.
"I leave for college tomorrow and you don't even want to wish me good luck?" Cashmere took a step toward Johanna and tilted her head to the side. "I remember telling you that next time I called, you would answer or I would tell Katniss all about your dirty, dark secrets." She took another step toward Johanna. "And somehow, you beat me to it." Johanna's eyebrows rose to her hairline. "Oh, she didn't tell you? I paid your girlfriend a visit a few days ago. All my attempts at making her hate you failed." Cashmere rolled her eyes. "She loves you."
Johanna smirked at the other girl, feeling empowered by Cashmere's admission of defeat. "Looks like you lost then, doesn't it dear?"
The temporary scowl on Cashmere's face morphed into something downright sinister. A loud crash of thunder sounded off next to them through Johanna's open window, and the light above their heads cut off. The low whir of the air conditioning ceased and the room was only lit periodically by bright flashes of lightning. "Oh I wouldn't say that. You see, Johanna honey, all I wanted was for us to have one more night together. Satisfy this itch I've been having."
The blonde woman took a final step toward Johanna, pinning the back of the shorter girl's knees against her chair. Johanna didn't sit down but her torso bent back a little to avoid touching Cashmere. "Get away from me."
Cashmere chuckled and shook her head, reaching her hands up to pull her hair out of its tight ponytail and allowing her blonde locks to cascade on to her shoulders. "When I was a freshman I wanted to be a varsity cheerleader. Normally freshmen are not allowed to even try out, but the head cheerleader said I had potential so she let me. I nailed it, naturally, but there was something in my way. A girl. Some nobody junior with perky tits and a squeaky voice. The decision ultimately came down to either me or her."
Johanna didn't understand why she was being given this irrelevant monologue. If Cashmere wanted to have sex then she was going to leave sorely disappointed because Johanna held no desire for anyone outside of Katniss. In the darkness she heard a click and years of watching films placed the noise in her mind almost as quickly as the metal softly made contact with her forehead. "Is that a gun?" Johanna whispered, her voice trembling although she wished it not to.
Cashmere chuckled. "It sure is. Good call, Mason. It's a 23 caliber handgun. I think they call it a Glock 23. Used by police forces all across the country. You'd be surprised how easy it is to get a hold of one of these." She grabbed Johanna's shirt with her free hand and tossed her across the room toward the bed. Johanna felt her legs hit the side of her mattress but she stood, her eyes darting toward the door. Another bright flash of lightning lit Cashmere and she saw the small pistol in her hand, aimed toward her. "My daddy keeps this in his bedroom to ward off intruders. But his safe lock is so easy to guess it's a joke. Sit down, please."
Johanna obliged, fear spreading across her chest. Cashmere went over toward the door, positioning the chair underneath the door handle so both exit and entry would be more difficult. She rummaged in her pocket as she spoke again. "Well, as you know, I can be pretty competitive. I was not going to lose my shot at being the first freshman in Panem history to make the varsity cheerleading squad on her first tryout. Especially not to some dumb slut."
Cashmere withdrew something jangling and metal from her coat pocket and sauntered across the room back toward Johanna. She motioned with her pistol but Johanna could barely make her out in the darkness. "Lay down on the bed." Johanna followed her instructions and felt Cashmere crawl across her, sitting down on her hips. She tucked the gun into her waistband and Johanna felt cold steel wrap around her racing pulses as Cashmere secured her to her bed. This was not the first time she had ever done this with Cashmere, but it was the first time she did it unwillingly.
Like any hostage she tugged at her restraints futilely. Cashmere smirked down at her handiwork, relishing the feeling of power in having Johanna helpless beneath her. It had been far too long since she had felt the warmth of Johanna's lithe body against her own. The soft curves of her stomach were preferable to the hard abs of her boyfriend. "Anyway, so it comes down to me and the Superslut. And wouldn't you know it? Somehow she falls down the stairs in the hallway the day before the results were going to be posted." Cashmere pouted mockingly. "Poor thing, broken leg and everything. Just couldn't make the squad that year."
Johanna's eyes, nearly black as night in the consuming darkness of her room, widened. Cashmere was a fucking psycho. "You pushed her down the stairs? You fucking crazy bitch."
Cashmere snickered and ran the mouth of the gun along Johanna's jawline. "Oh no honey, I didn't push her. You think I would do that dirty work myself? Hardly." She paused. "She tripped. She tripped and I was on that squad." She leaned down close to Johanna's face, placing her lips on her cheek. "I always get what I want. I wanted varsity, I got varsity. I wanted you and I got you. You think us fucking at that party was an accident?"
"I think you're a crazy person," Johanna replied as evenly as she could considering there was a gun placed directly in the side of her face.
"You're probably right but rich kids don't go crazy. They don't go to jail and they don't lose to little nobodies who live in the worn edges of town." Cashmere moved up on Johanna's body her knees digging into the pillow on either side of Johanna's head.
Johanna squeezed her eyes shut and tried to grapple with what was happening. Cashmere, on her bed, a gun near her temple and her panty-less sex hovering above her mouth. "You're bitter because I'm in love with someone else? You don't even fucking like me. You think forcing me to have sex with you is going to change that?" Her eyes narrowed and she glared hard at the woman above her, even though the barrel of the gun was still pressed against her head. "I'm never going to love you. You'll never be anything but a giant fucking mistake to me."
Johanna saw the brief hurt flash in Cashmere's green eyes but it was erased in a second. Cashmere laughed, leaning over to place the gun on the table next to them. She carefully unzipped the back of her skirt and gracefully pulled it down her hips, under her knees and discarded it gingerly on the floor next to the bed. Her unclothed sex poised directly above Johanna she threaded her fingers through the younger girl's hair. "Oh this isn't about Katniss, not really. It's not even about the sex." She moved backward for a moment and leaned her face in close to Johanna's. "This is about you forgetting who has the fucking power here. You are nothing. You will always be nothing. And nothing ever stands in my fucking way. You think I ever had feelings for you?"
Cashmere crawled back over Johanna's head, roughly shoving the younger girl against her wet sex. Johanna froze for a moment until Cashmere yanked her hair so hard her eyes teared. "I never loved you, Johanna," she said, letting out a tiny gasp as Johanna's tongue hesitantly ran along her folds. "But you are mine. You belong to me." The older girl reached for her weapon, holding in the same hand she braced herself on the headboard with. Her other hand remained painfully wrapped in Johanna's hair, keeping the younger girl's face against her.
Johanna wasn't sure if the tears in her eyes were from the fear, the pain of Cashmere pulling her hair, or the fact that the situation was even occurring. The layers of wrongness piled: she was cheating Katniss, her life was being threatened, and this was, without a doubt, rape. She wanted no part in Cashmere's sick power play for her affection. Never had she felt so powerless.
Having been with Cashmere more times than she cared to think about, she knew exactly how to manipulate her into climax as fast as possible. On the rare occasions she was in the Diamant home, there was the fear that Glimmer or Gloss would show up whilst she was making Cashmere scream in pleasure. That meant learning exactly what the blonde enjoyed and doing it fast enough not to get caught.
Within a few minutes of ministrations with her tongue the blonde above her growled in climax, pushing herself off Johanna and sitting back on her heels. She took a moment to recover from her intense orgasm, taking in deep, shuddering breaths as Johanna stared at her coldly from the bed. "Oh don't act like you don't enjoy that."
Johanna moved her head to wipe her mouth on her shirt without the aid of her arms. "Fuck you. Just let me go, you got what you wanted."
Cashmere laughed, cocking the gun and pointing it directly at Johanna's forehead. She felt the younger girl shudder beneath her and the smile on her face grew sadistically wider. "You think I was just here to get off?" She placed the gun on Johanna's forehead and leaned down so she was level with her ear. "I came here to ruin you."
"I'd rather you just kill me," Johanna replied in the lowest, most stable tone she could manage. And it was true; she'd rather die than have to feel Cashmere force herself on her. The thought made bile rise in her throat.
Cashmere snickered. "Oh do you? Because I could. End your worthless fucking life." She pressed the gun harder into Johanna's forehead. "I'd get some jail time; much less than I should because my family has money and I'm pretty." Johanna rolled her eyes and Cashmere shrugged. "It's a fact. But think about your poor mother. First her deadbeat husband then her useless daughter? I might as well kill her too."
Johanna quivered in anger. Her hands jerked uselessly at the handcuffs, which only served to entertain the blonde above her. "And what of Katniss? What will happen to her when I kill you? She'll be devastated, the poor thing." Johanna's body stiffened. Cashmere raised her blonde eyebrow in acknowledgement of her correctness. "So you're going to sit back and let me do whatever the fuck I want because my love," she leaned in close to whisper directly into Johanna's ear, "you don't have a fucking choice."
The butt of the gun whipped across Johanna's cheek and she winced at the dazing pain. She felt the slow trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth slide down her cheek toward her ear. Cashmere's lips found hers and punished her into a kiss she didn't want, her tongue moving around her mouth. Hard rain pounded against her roof as Cashmere placed the gun on the bed for a moment to use her hands to undo Johanna's jeans.
She wanted to beg her to stop. Maybe if she tried to reason with Cashmere's human side, she would see how wrong what she was doing was. Another loud roll of thunder moved above their heads as Cashmere shoved two fingers inside her. Instead of a plea, a soft sob came up from Johanna's throat. Cashmere had taken on another persona all together. The gun in her right hand and the left inside Johanna she was not trying to give her pleasure; she was handing down a punishment. Johanna bit her lip to suppress the sobs trying to escape the lump in her throat.
Tears slowly leaked out of the corners of her eyes. She willed her eyes shut. Soon it would be over. Whatever she had done to deserve this, she suddenly felt very sorry for it. Her mind tried to move to a place happier, a place where she wasn't in pain. It didn't work. The crack of Cashmere's hand against her mouth or her unforgiving hand pushing inside her center would break her concentration and bring her back into this nightmare.
There was nothing inside her head but the sound of rain and the loud hum of her own fury. The music ceased.