Cressida looked out at her class with a small frown on her lips. The teenagers, many of them seniors and one foot out the door, were in various stages of boredom as she attempted to engage them. Unfortunately her planning had been off and the novel she had assigned as their last lesson, an easy read in Ethan Frome had been a flop. Nothing dampened a summer spirit like a depressing winter novel set in New England.

"Okay, I know you're all waiting for the bell but we are not leaving until we discuss, at least shallowly, how you all felt about the novel." Her eyes moved around the room to catch the gaze of whatever unfortunate soul was going to be a part of the discussion. "Marvel?"

The brown-haired boy looked up from his desk and shrugged his shoulders. "I thought it was okay. I mean it was boring as shit but I guess I understood why he stayed with his wife."

Cressida raised her eyebrow, intriguied. Typically the very conservative notion of staying in a loveless marriage didn't win over teenagers. They were still drunk on the literary notion of true love and passion, like Romeo and Juliet or Pride and Prejudice. "Really? Why is that?"

"Because she's been there the whole time, his wife. She cared for him before she got sick, y'know? And clearly that other chick isn't too stable since she was all, 'Let's kill ourselves so we don't have to live normal lives.'" Cressida chuckled at his summation of the novel. "And that's what's expected. A man stays with his wife. She didn't do nothin' wrong."

"She didn't do anything at all," Johanna interjected, crossing her legs. Cressida looked at her interestedly, nodding for her to continue. "Zeena is not just some woman. She's a symbol. The societal expectations that Ethan feels he's crushed under. He thinks he ought to stay with Zeena because oh no, what will this sleepy town of nobodies think of him?"

Cressida smirked, crossing the room toward Johanna's desk. "And you think this notion is silly?"

"I think it's downright idiotic," Johanna corrected, sitting back in her chair. Her deep cedar eyes remained locked on Cressida's blue ones. "It is the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion." Cressida tried to look unaffected but the well-timed quote made her swoon slightly. "Frome was afraid to give wholly to his desires. He was so concerned with Zeena - really just concerned with what people thought - that he disregarded his happiness for complacency." Her mouth moved up into an almost unnoticeable smirk. "Sometimes to get what you want, what you really, truly desire, you have to take risks."

Cressida felt her heart pounding inside her chest. A quick look around the room showed the students in ranging levels of disinterest, relieved her of the notion that they understood the undercurrent of Johanna's interpretation of the novel. To Cressida, the meaning was unmistakeable. Unmistakeable and unnerving. There should be no reason this girl, this girl barely burgeoning on adulthood, should be able to lord this power over her. "Oftentimes you cannot just take what you want, Mason. There are many things to consider. Frome probably would have lost his job in his town, his very livelihood."

"Are jobs any harder to come by than love?" Johanna cocked and eyebrow and waited for a response. She did not receive one. "It's much easier to change direction in occupation than it is to change your heart. You feel what you feel and no amount of running or evasion will soothe it. Love will be felt. Passion will be felt. Living without it is just cowardly."

Won't you please let me go? These words lie inside they hurt me so.

"Johanna stop we're gonna be late for dinner."

Johanna grinned against Katniss's moving mouth as she kissed her, trying desperately to get underneath Katniss's shirt. "Relax darlin' we have plenty of time." Johanna's hands moved to her hair, crushing Katniss into a kiss that she was trying to get out of.

Katniss finally pushed Johanna away with some force, glaring at her. Johanna hadn't been on the receiving end of legitimate anger from Katniss in ...possibly ever. Unequipped for it she blinked a few times. "Johanna, please. We have fifteen minutes to get down there. I don't want to be late."

There was an unnecessary crossness to her tone that gave Johanna pause. She sat down on the edge of Katniss's bed, bouncing against the familiar-smelling bedsheets. "Is there something wrong?"

And I'm not the kind that likes to tell you just what I want to do.

Katniss looked at herself in her vanity, adjusting her earrings that Johanna had moved around with her tongue in her attempt to seduce her. Under normal circumstances she would've welcomed Johanna's advances. However, the impending cloud of graduation coupled with the upcoming storm that would be moving to California, Katniss was in no mood for Johanna's distractions. She refused to even entertain the notion that their relationship was not going to work long distance and it had been quietly eating away at Katniss for weeks.

Katniss was tired of living in that fantasy world. The harsh reality was that there would be 3,000 miles between them. For most of the year for four years. Not counting if either of them studied abroad or didn't come home one summer. "Yes. You won't talk to me."

Johanna raised an eyebrow, adjusting the beanie on her head as she did so. "I'm talking to you now, brainless."

"You know what I'm talking about!" Katniss spat back, whirling on her heel to face her girlfriend. Johanna was incorrigible when she was certain she was right. Johanna looked surprised, even hurt, at her outburst and Katniss closed her eyes. "I leave for California on July 1st. My Aunt Maysilee has a house there and she's going to let me stay with her before the semester starts."

"And?"

I'm not the kind that needs to tell you just what you want me to.

"And? And?! Are you really that fucking naive? We are going to be on opposite ends of the country. We are going to try and Skype and see each other but you know just as well as I do that we'll be too busy. You're going to Julliard. One of the most competitive schools in the country. You're going to be surrounded by people like you who are talented and musical and you're not going to want to sit on your bed in your dorm while everyone else practices for recitals or writes operas or whatever." Johanna's mouth quirked into a small smile before settling back into a frown. "I'm going to be elbow deep in textbooks and novels and I am not going to be able to do this."

Johanna stood up, taking off her hat and setting it on top of Katniss's mattress. Her wide brown eyes glossed over as she moved toward her girlfriend. Katniss recoiled from her touch and went toward the other side of the room. Johanna felt like someone was taking a carving knife to her stomach. Katniss had never shirked from her touch before. "What are you trying to tell me? You want to just give up on us?"

Katniss sighed, expelling a short sob that was a precursor to the tears she felt collecting in her throat. The hot, wet sadness and anger inside her that had been accumulating for weeks was suddenly very present and demanding. "I am not giving up I'm being realistic. We're eighteen! We don't know anything about conducting a relationship long distance."

Johanna's eyes went perceptibly darker as she placed her hands on her hips. "This doesn't sound like you. This sounds like your mother. Is that what she's been telling you? This bullshit 'we're too young' thing?"

"We are too young!" Katniss stepped to Johanna, grasping her biceps with her fingers. "I hate being without you but the thought of you so far away and potentially meeting someone else kills me."

I saw you this morning I thought you might like to know I got your message in full a few days ago.

Johanna's eyes moved around the room, attempting to focus on just about anything to keep her head from spinning. This felt unreal. It felt almost too painful to be real, like a particularly fresh nightmare. One that was so gruesome, so frightening that it shakes you from sleep with alarm. She wrenched free of Katniss's grasp and grabbed her hat from Katniss's bed. "If you want to break up with me, grow the fuck up and do it like an adult. Tell me you don't want to see me anymore."

"I do want to see you."

"What, as friends?" Katniss nodded weakly and Johanna let out something strangled between a cry and a laugh. "Fuck you, Katniss. Fuck you and fuck your mother too." Katniss's palm stung her cheek in a fearsome slap that blurred her vision for a moment. When she looked back at Katniss, the tears were streaming down her face. "One day you're going to look back on this fucking moment and you're going to regret it. You're going to regret the day you let your mother control a relationship she is not in." Johanna shook her head sadly, running her fingers through her hair. "I will never love anyone the way I love you but I am not going to try and convince you to be with me. That's not how love works."

"Now who's giving up?" came the soft reply.

"Are you serious? You just said that you aren't willing to do this anymore. Just because I'm not willing to torture myself by attempting to be friends, or worse, stay in a relationship where you've checked out? If you've already thought about leaving, you might as well have just left." Johanna was calm. She was calmer than she had ever been. In her nightmares when she dreamt about Katniss leaving her, she would rage and cry and feel sick. In the morning when she awoke she'd oftentimes be too nauseated to move. She felt like the stale summer air before a thunderstorm. "I'd say I'd like to be friends but that would require me to pretend that I'm not in love with you. Which I am. Which I always will be."

I understood every word that it said.

Katniss's chin dropped to her chest, shuddering sobs shaking her ribcage. Johanna wanted to hold her, an instinct as intuitive as taking a breath. This was not the type of pain Johanna could will away. Being with Katniss had seemed like a forgone conclusion, as if all other aspects of her life were supposed to have collected around it. Without this pillar of her future, where would the rest of her ambitions go? As boats adrift need a lighthouse, Johanna's dreams needed Katniss to guide her.

She left Katniss's room, casting a disdainful glance toward Mrs. Everdeen on her way out. The reasoning behind her duplicity was not lost on Johanna; it was reasonable to expect them to break up before college. They were young, they were impulsive, but they weren't idiots. They weren't helpless puppies who needed a leash to guide them toward their futures. But Johanna would not put herself through that torment. If Katniss had doubts, their relationship was doomed already. If she was going to bend to her mother's whims instead of striking out as her own person, then that was a problem she herself would have to solve.

And when she did, Johanna would be there.

And now that I've actually heard it, you're going to regret.

I am colorblind. Coffee black and egg white.

Life is strange. Time moves along blissfully unaware of the heaviness in hearts, the pain in eyes, the ache in souls. Johanna's walks to school were different now. No more bouncing blonde curls of Prim, no hand holding her own as she made her way toward the school. With each step a sadness she had been denying herself the privilege of feeling over the past few weeks.

School was torturous. Every hallway, every closet, every bathroom...places she might have pushed Katniss against a wall and kissed her. A classroom where they might have had a long talk about nothing, simply enjoying each other's presence. The grief over their relationship had yet to really fall in, but the palpitations in her heart and the sinking stone in her gut made her steps heavy. Cressida, though she had been keeping her distance, had noticed the change in her as well. But Johanna refused to speak to her. She didn't speak to anyone. She'd pass Katniss in the hallways and be forced to look away. Finnick had tried to talk to her several times but she shut him out.

School wasn't going to happen. Johanna instead spent the day with her mother at the shop. Polly didn't have to have a conversation with her daughter to know what had happened. Johanna had come home that day, locked herself in her room, and played Johann Sebastian Bach's "Come, Sweet Death." The only other time she had ever heard Johanna play it was after her father died.

Pull me out from inside. I am ready. I am ...fine.

They didn't have to speak. For hours they just worked side by side, cleaning up the shop and organizing the inventory. Around two p.m. she left without saying good-bye, walking the short distance back to the school. She sat on the edge of the car hood for hours. About two and a half, if her cell phone was correct.

Cressida's eyes were wide as she stepped cautiously toward her car. "Mason. You missed class." Her tone was even, not soft. It didn't take a scientist to understand why Johanna had been upset. In the past two weeks even Katniss Everdeen had been glum, and more glaringly, she had been absent from the outside of Cressida's classroom.

Johanna meant to respond. Instead her legs gave out and she slid down the hood of the car onto the gravel of the parking lot. Hard, loud sobs shook from her lungs outward, shaking her body as she crouched on the ground. She heard the car door open and close, then Cressida came down to crouch in front of her. "Can...can.. I can't.."

"Shh, okay darling, let's get you off the ground. If we're gonna have a big emotional breakdown, let's have it somewhere more comfortable than the parking lot in front of my car." Cressida helped Johanna up and motioned for the car. "Get in."

Johanna didn't object - she couldn't - and she slid into the passenger's side. Once Cressida got in the car Johanna looked over at her, red puffiness underneath both her eyes. "Why would she do this? I can't... I don't know what to do anymore. I'm trying," Johanna hiccuped, "I'm trying to be mature about this but I can't. I feel like the world is ending. Why does it feel like this?"

I am covered in skin. No one gets to come in.

Cressida looked at Johanna, stroking her back strands of hair with a sympathetic smile. "Oh darling girl, because that's what heartbreak feels like." Cressida turned over the engine and made out of the parking lot quickly. Her best efforts to keep Johanna at bay her half-hearted at best. Seeing her in such desperate pain awakened an empathetic need inside her she hadn't felt since she was a teenager herself.

They ended up in a secluded part of town Cressida had found upon moving last summer; an empty meadow with a few fallen logs that were perfect for sitting. Johanna continued to weep silently as she brought her there, making her way toward the fallen log she herself had done a lot of thinking on. She sat there for a while with Johanna, letting the girl cry on her shoulder and sniffle, wiping her mucus on her sleeve.

"There's no use in weeping, though we are condemned to part: There's such a thing as keeping a remembrance in one's heart. There's such a thing as dwelling on the thought ourselves have nurs'd. And with scorn and courage telling the world to do its worst. We'll not let its follies grieve us, we'll just take them as they come. And then every day will leave us, a merry laugh for home. When we've left each friend and brother, when we're parted wide and far. We will think of one another, as even better than we are." Cressida peered at Johanna, who had rested her head on her shoulder. Her sobs had quieted down some since they had sat down. It must have been at least two hours as the sun had begun to fall a little in the sky, but was still bright and burning.

"Every glorious sight above us, every pleasant sight beneath. We'll connect with those that love us, whom we truly love till death. In the evening, when we're sitting by the fire perchance alone. Then shall heart with warm heart meeting, give responsive tone for tone. We can burst the bonds which chain us, which cold human hands have wrought. And where none shall dare restrain us we can meet again, in thought. So there's no use in weeping, bear a cheerful spirit still; Never doubt that Fate is keeping future good for present ill."

Johanna wiped her face again on her sleeve, a little disgusted with herself. "Do you... do you think that she and I will be together one day?"

Pull me out from inside.

Cressida's heart ached inside her chest. Johanna was so earnest, so forthright with her emotions. How Katniss had ever looked into those guileless brown eyes and broke her heart was a mystery. Katniss was too young to know that this kind of person, the person who can give her heart wholly to everything she does, is as rare as they come. "Maybe, darling. We can't predict the future. If we could we'd all be kings and queens. But we're not kings and queens, we're like the little blind mice in the clock."

"Is this supposed to make me feel better? Telling me I'm a rat?"

Cressida chuckled, kissing the crown of Johanna's head. "No, I'm just saying we're all doing this together blindly. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it makes sense. But maybe, down the line, it will. Until then, you just hold tightest to whatever gets you through the day." Cressida looked down where Johanna had gripped her hand tightly. She unlaced their fingers and she wrapped her arm around her shoulder, pulling her in close.

I am folded and unfolded and unfolding.

Graduation came quickly. The days and nights melted together into a muddled mass for Johanna until the day her mother had been waiting for arrived. She donned her cap and gown, walked under the arch, grabbed her diploma and graduated. The day was long and hot, almost unbearable for Johanna with the nearness of Katniss. Her eyes always seemed drawn to her, finding that magnetizing gray gaze in the sea of eyes staring forward.

After they had thrown their caps in the air there was controlled commotion as family and friends got on the field to congratulate their family members. Her mother was off talking to some of the other mothers, Katniss was... Johanna had lost sight of her and that was probably for the best.

"Hello, Johanna."

The two words felt like steel knives in her spine, twisting and rubbing against her nerves. That voice, that voice she had heard in her nightmares almost daily since nearly a year ago. That honey voice that had whispered in her ear and wiggled inside her veins. Johanna could feel the blood drain her face as she turned around in the grass.

"What, no hug?" Johanna swallowed down the bile in her throat as her eyes drank in the sight before her. Cashmere, hair now a darkened shade of brown instead of her typical blonde, standing along amidst the field of graduates. Of course she would be here; Glimmer was graduating too. Johanna's body began to tremble a little as her throat dried.

Cressida turned around from her conversation and looked at Johanna. She didn't recognize the girl she was talking to, but by the way Johanna looked like she was seeing an apparition, it didn't take her long to put two and two together. A rage she hadn't felt in many years began to bubble beneath her skin. This girl was extraordinarily beautiful with long, flowing cedar hair and a tall, tightly fit form. She reminded Cressida of the young women who would be courtesans in some medieval royal court.

"You need to get away from me," Johanna said lowly, finding a small sliver of confidence somewhere within her. Maybe it was the distance from the event but she felt better than she thought she'd feel if she saw Cashmere again. Still though, an intense fear ran through her veins like heroin making her ill and slightly dizzy.

Cashmere laughed, flipping her hair over her shoulder and taking one step closer to Johanna. "Or what, Johanna? What will you do?" She gave a look around, green eyes darting toward the other graduates. "I've been waiting a long time to see you again. Where's your better half?" Johanna didn't know where Katniss had gone. Probably somewhere to talk to her mother or Prim, maybe Gale. Johanna felt like an animal in a tar pit, sinking deeper and deeper with no one to help her. "Aw, did she break up with you?" That mocking pout. With every blink of her eyes she saw that mocking pout hovering over her face when she winced. "Aw does that hurt?"

"Mason," Cressida called from over Cashmere's shoulder, pulling herself to her full height. She was glad she had gone with her dreadful heels even though they were wobbly in the grass. They allowed her to have at least an inch of height on this mysterious brunette who seemed to be frightening Johanna. There was absolutely only one person that could be. Cressida's jaw tightened considerably as she stood next to, and slightly in front of, Johanna. "Who's your friend?"

Johanna's lips set into a tight line. "This is not my friend. This is Cashmere. She graduated last year."

Cressida was not impressed. This was not going to be some conversation where they all avoided what desperately needed to be said. Cressida stepped closer to Cashmere, wishing deeply to slap that smug smirk off of her lips. "You're the rapist." Who needed violence when one had words? The smirk fell from Cashmere's lips like a dropping anvil, her green eyes that were alight with superiority now fell flat. "Don't try to be coy, sweetheart. I know who you are. I know what you've done. And more importantly, I know what you are." She stepped one more step closer to Cashmere, looking down at her and a smirk on her face. "I am not a child. I am not afraid of you. You have no control over Johanna any longer. The power you thought you possessed? The power to make someone feel as helpless inside as you do? You do not have that power, dear."

"What the fuck are you talking about? Who are you?"

Cressida crossed her arms over her chest and didn't back down. "Who I am doesn't matter. But I will get straight to my point if you need brevity." Her eyes narrowed considerably. "I will make every single breathing moment of your life is veritably painful as possible if you ever set foot near Johanna again. And I don't mean just physically, though I am not above it. I will move inside you like a disease, infecting everything you are. I will be in your dreams, screaming inside your head. You have no idea of what I am capable, dear. So here's what I suggest. You move along, you take your sister and your family and you have a nice dinner. You go home and sit in your empty bed and you contemplate how dead you are inside. And if you are ever in the need to feel alive again and you contact Johanna, I will make you feel alive with pain. I will make you burn with it. Am I perfectly. Fucking. Clear?"

Cashmere scoffed and turned to leave, but Cressida gripped her fingers around Cashmere's arm tightly. She tried to wrench free but the older woman was just a little stronger. "Get off of me."

Cressida laughed and leaned into Cashmere's ear. "Did she say that to you? Is that what you hear in your head when you sleep at night? Do you sleep at night? Or are you kept up by the crawling evil that lives inside you?" She felt the girl shiver and Cressida tightened her grip. "Now I will ask you one more time before I find your father in this audience and I tell him that his eldest daughter is a rapist and a sexual predator. Am I clear?"

"Y-yes." Johanna's eyes widened. She had no idea what Cressida was saying to Cashmere but the way Cashmere's face had paled and her voice had lowered, it must have been something worthwhile. Cressida let go of Cashmere, straightening out her own skirt as she watched the former blonde walk away toward the bleachers where the families were.

She turned back to Johanna who immediately threw her arms around her. Cressida fell back a few steps but slid her arms around Johanna's waist in a tight hug. This was safe here. Just a teacher hugging a student on graduation day. They didn't have to know how her body trembled as Johanna spoke lowly into her ear. "Thank you."

"Do you want to leave?" Cressida asked suddenly, running her fingers through Johanna's hair. The younger girl nodded. "Okay. Let's go."

You know that it would be untrue. You know that I would be a liar.

Cressida heard the discordant sound of her piano as her ass hit the keys with such force the small picture frame on the top of the piano fell over. Johanna was in between her legs in a flash, her fingers tangled up in her hair gripping the strands with a desperate cling. Johanna smiled wickedly into their kiss, moving her lips over Cressida's mouth, teasing her tongue with a swipe of her own before racing kisses down her jaw and behind her ear. She felt nimble fingers skillfully undoing the buttons of her blouse with surprising deftness. Johanna's lips never left her neck where she was alternating between hot pushes of her tongue and hard scrapes of her teeth, careful not to leave any marks.

Two hands grasped the sides of her shirt and pulled them down roughly over her arms. Cressida helped by pulling her arms in and Johanna flung the shirt carelessly on the floor, gripping the undersides of Cressida's thighs and lifting her up off the piano. Her legs wrapped around the back of Johanna's thighs as the girl walked toward the stairs but got as far as the wall and slammed Cressida against it, capturing her between the wall and her mouth with another passionate kiss. Cressida broke away form Johanna's mouth to pant and moan, those skillful lips kissing the hollow of her throat and the sensitive patch of skin beneath her ear.

"I do have a bedroom," Cressida managed to blurt out in between moans, prompting Johanna to stop what she was doing and focus those wild wolf eyes at her. Never in her life had she been on the receiving end of such unadulterated desire like she saw in Johanna. Her raw sexuality could power entire nations indefinitely.

"Then by all means, lead the way." Johanna dropped Cressida back on her feet, kissing her fully on the lips once more before allowing Cressida to move again. The blonde took her by the hand and led her around the bottom of the stairs toward the back of the home. Her bedroom was exactly how Johanna had imagined it: a small desk with a laptop and a pile of books, an extremely neat bed with white pillows and a white comforter perfectly made, black and white photographs of trees emerging from placid lakes. "Jesus Christ, are you Mrs. Dalloway?"

Cressida chuckled at the reference and turned around, closing the door behind Johanna. "If so that makes you my Sally Seton, doesn't it? My youthful indiscretion. My revolutionary." Cressida took Johanna by the back of her neck and pulled her into a kiss, using her teeth to tug on Johanna's bottom lip hungrily. "My free-spirited garden dalliance."

If I were to say to you, 'Girl we couldn't get much higher.'

Johanna grinned against the kiss and pushed them both forward, forcing Cressida to sit down on the bed. She got to her knees, looking up into the widely dilated blue eyes of Cressida's. She slowly took off Cressida's heels, twirling the strap on her finger playfully before tossing them to the side. She was sure somewhere in the room was the specific place Cressida put her shoes but Johanna didn't care. Her hands ran up the length of Cressida's stocking-clad legs, moving underneath the skirt until she got to the hem of the stockings on her slim hips.

She pulled the stockings and matching panties down her thighs, over her knees, giving the inside of her knee a kiss as she put both of the undergarments on the floor next to her. Cressida raised an eyebrow at her young lover, leaning forward to grab her by the collar of her shirt and pulled her in for a kiss. "Now I feel underdressed, Mason."

Johanna ran her tongue along her teeth as she stood up and kicked off her sneakers, watching them lay next to Cressida's heels with a bemused smirk. Her socks came next, her shirt pulled over her head until she was clad in only her bra and jeans. Cressida moved back on her mattress, shifting around so she threw her sheet to the side of the bed. Up on her knees she beckoned Johanna with a crooked finger and Johanna crawled toward her, kissing her stomach and up between her breasts as she got closer. Cressida slid her hands down her own back to begin unzipping the back of her skirt and Johanna quickly grabbed her hands to still them.

"Leave it on." Cressida's eyes flicked up toward Johanna's before she closed them and pulled Johanna in for a kiss. Her fingers dipped underneath the straps of her bra and lowered them down Johanna's shoulders before unclasping it and letting it fall to the bed. Her mouth moved down Johanna's neck to her clavicle, lavishing wet kisses on the beautiful bone structure there, watching her veins move with every gasped breath of pleasure. Her lips moved around the light pink nipple, giving it a gentle suck as her other hand squeezed the soft flesh. She felt Johanna's fingers in her hair again, urging her on and closer to her breasts.

C'mon baby light my fire. Try to set the night on fire.

"You know," Johanna panted, "I've never been with anyone who knew what she was doing." Cressida looked up from her position between Johanna's breasts and smirked, kissing her way back up to Johanna's mouth.

Her mouth moved into a pout. "Well then I guess we'll just have to hope you can keep up, darling." Johanna scowled at this and pushed Cressida back roughly onto the bed, laying her body completely on top of her and capturing her lips in a searing, bruising kiss unlike any they had shared so far. One only had to know Johanna a few moments to know she was not one to be challenged. Her bra was quickly discarded on the floor and her breasts squeezed into Johanna's hands as she pushed them together, burying her face in Cressida's cleavage and smothering it in hot kisses.

"I haven't had any complaints," Johanna murmured into Cressida's pale skin, running her lips along the pliable surface of Cressida's stomach, kissing her ribs that poked out slightly as she arched her back into the contact.

Cressida chuckled. "Maybe she didn't know the difference." For her insolence Johanna moved upward and kissed her neck until she got to the junction of her shoulder and neck and bit down hard, causing Cressida to jerk on Johanna's hair roughly.

The time to hesitate is through.

Johanna's eyes were alight with desire as she looked into Cressida's face, licking her swollen lips slowly. She dropped her head so their lips barely touched, keeping herself just out of the reach of Cressida's face trying to kiss her. "I can't fucking wait to make you come undone." Cressida breathed out an aroused breath as Johanna kissed her once more, distracting her from the fingers creeping up her inner thigh and underneath her skirt. The restrictive skirt made it nearly impossible for Cressida to widen her legs but Johanna seemed to enjoy it. She slowly slid two fingers inside her sex and Cressida threw her arms around Johanna's neck as her hips came up to meet Johanna's thrust. Johanna withdrew her fingers and brought them to her lips, bringing a whine out of Cressida's mouth. She sucked on her two fingers and winked down at her lover. "You're so wet and fuck, you taste so good." Johanna pulled Cressida's skirt down her hips.

"I thought the skirt was your kink?" Cressida asked playfully, leaning up to kiss Johanna once more and she rolled her eyes back at the taste of herself on the younger girl's tongue.

"Fuck it. I need to taste you." Johanna moved her knees backward to position herself better between Cressida's open thighs, marveling at the muscled thighs as she ran her hands toward her sex. She bit the inside of Cressida's thigh gently, receiving a hiss in response. Johanna coated her tongue in Cressida's arousal, groaning into her sex as her tongue moved within her. The blonde above her gasped and moved her hips in a rocking motion, gripping the pillow behind her head. Johanna pulled away from her and Cressida whined. "How do you... you taste incredible."

Cressida let out a breathy laugh and moved Johanna's head back to her and hummed in pleasure as Johanna's tongue once again ran along her folds and lapped up her arousal. "I don't eat meat," Cressida explained between deep intakes of breath. "And I.. eat a lot of fruit." Johanna grunted an appreciative remark into Cressida's sex, writing in cursive on her clit with her tongue.

She stretched her arms up, cupping Cressida's breasts and rolling her nipples between her fingers as her lips wrapped around her clit and sucked hard. More than anything, she wanted to hear Cressida curse. She wanted to hear the blonde lose control of her sophisticated mouth and swear out her name as she came. She pulled one hand down and pushed three fingers inside the older woman, finally receiving what she wanted to hear.

No time to wallow in the mire.

"Holy fuck." Johanna kept her fingers moving quickly in and out of her lover, moving her head up her body, stopping to swipe sweat on to her tongue as she got close to Cressida's face. The blonde grabbed her by the shoulders and aggressively switched their positions, fucking herself on Johanna's hand with rapid thrusts of her hips.

Johanna smirked and grabbed Cressida by her long locks, pulling her in for a crushing kiss as she rolled them across the bed again, pinning Cressida beneath her. Cressida made a "nuh uh uh" noise and rolled them back, holding Johanna's free hand down and keeping her in place with a hand on her shoulder. Johanna's fingers curled against her g-spot and Cressida tossed her head back, orgasm crashing over her with a fierceness she had not experienced before.

She barely waited for Johanna to remove her hands before she grabbed her by her cheeks and pulled her up, kissing her deeply. Mischief in her eyes she rolled them over, positioning Johanna's hips just above her lips. Her fingers grabbed the firm flesh of Johanna's backside as she pulled her down, soaking up her wetness into her mouth.

Try now we can only lose.

Johanna moaned loudly. arching her back as Cressida's tongue did things Johanna didn't know a tongue could do. She was everywhere at once, inside her, along her folds, around her clit. Drawing designs like she as a renaissance painter doing a royal commission. Her thighs began to tremble before she could even think, sweat beading on her forehead as she tried to prevent her climax. It was too soon. She didn't want the marvelous feeling of Cressida's tongue inside her to be gone.

To bide herself a moment she turned around, ignoring Cressida's "What are you doing?" from beneath her. She positioned herself back over her face, again being swathed in the wonderful movement of her tongue. Johanna dipped her own head down, running her tongue along the length of Cressida's sex and gently lapping at her clit. She felt Cressida's low moan rumble inside her and she again pushed down her climax, eager now to make Cressida come with her. Her fingernails bit into Cressida's thighs as she placed gentle pressure on the girl's clit with her tongue, soft pushes that seemed to be working from the amount of vibrations she felt from Cressida's groans in her.

And our love become a funeral pyre.

Cressida did something, something magical with her tongue that sent Johanna's entire body shaking with climax. She swore and spat out her name into Cressida's folds, getting rewarded with a flood of her essence as Cressida's hips jerked in orgasm as well. Johanna grinned as she ran her tongue along Cressida's sopping wet sex, finally collapsing on her side and then rolling on to her back.

The blonde moaned as she got up off the bed, holding herself steady on the mattress. Her legs weren't exactly suitable for walking just yet. "I am... going to need a shower after that." Her eyes went to Johanna's prone form, then to the bed where sweat and sex had made dark patches on her sheets. "And new sheets, evidently."

"I'll join you," Johanna said, rolling off the bed and on to her feet. Cressida shot her a look from across the room and Johanna tilted her head. "What?"

"I think you joining me in the shower would create the exact problem I am trying to fix." Cressida padded to Johanna, wrapping her arms around the other girl's waist and kissing her on the forehead, tasting the salt of her sweat.

Johanna smirked. "Now who's having trouble keeping up, darling?" Cressida frowned sourly and Johanna giggled. Her attention was caught over Cressida's shoulder, however. "You have a mirror in here."

Cressida looked over her shoulder and nodded. "Yes? And?" Johanna grinned wickedly and pushed the two of them backward until Cressida was on the mattress again. Johanna looked at her, then toward the mirror, then back at Cressida again. The woman's blue eyes moved to the mirror where she saw herself, and her naked lover, hovered over the bed. Her entire body blushed as Johanna slid her hands up her sides and her arms, pinning them above her head. "O-oh." Her cheek dimpled as she pulled Johanna in for a kiss, tasting herself and Johanna in a sweet mixture on her tongue. "I could move it closer?" The way Johanna's eyes lit up with both desire and eagerness made Cressida laugh and place a small kiss on her lips. "I'll move it closer."

C'mon baby, light my fire.

Cressida's quote was Charlotte Bronte's "Parting."

Music: "Age of Consent," by New Order, "Colorblind" by Counting Crows, "Light My Fire" by the Doors.