As soon as she opened the door, the familiar scent of her loft rolled out like a vaporous greeting. She dumped her keys, the brown paper bag, and the other shopping bag on top of the kitchen island and glanced around the place. She remembered how they had gone around the house blowing out every candle before leaving for the airport, with their suitcases waiting by the door, stood upright like impatient children. Now, apart from the smell, the stillness of her surroundings was what Alex was now finding most noticeable in an almost chilling manner. Everything was in order - too much order.
Well, it was only natural, she guessed, after such a long trip, to still feel a bit weirded out. After the constant plane-hopping, bus-catching, and hitchhiking, after the incessant partying, the constant chattering, and the backdrop of every accent under the sun, those rooms were simply too static and too fucking quiet.
She fished inside the paper bag, pulled out a beer, and walked into the bedroom. Scattered on top of the long, rectangular dresser was an assortment of tiny bottles and transparent plastic boxes: some of Piper's makeup. Using her thumb and index finger, she picked up one of the bottles and immediately let it drop back on the dresser. It reminded her of something she had bought, something which was still inside the untouched shopping bag in the kitchen, something called Dermablend Cover cream.
Slumping on the bed, Alex pulled down the zippers of her tall leather boots, kicked them off, and took small, resolute sips from the beer can.
To be truthful, Piper's absence was perhaps the most noticeable thing of all, but everything was going to be fine. It was fine. Piper was just visiting her family and would be back soon, and then they'd talk and the girl would understand. Alex made the choice to concentrate on the positive aspects, and she could always do that, looking at her beautiful surroundings, reminding herself of all she had managed to achieve. There was no reason to believe that something would go wrong, although bad things were beginning to happen here and there. It turned out that some of their fellow travelers had been caught and, consequently, she'd been forced to take some wilder chances, being a bit more reckless with her couriers, because her output still needed to be as consistent as before.
In short, she needed somebody new, and unknown, and invisible, and she needed them soon. It had to be Piper.
Alex padded her way back to the kitchen, sat on the island, and snapped open a second beer, her lips quickly covering the can's semi-circular opening to capture the emerging foam. That was when she heard a rattling of keys and the front door open. A rather made-up blonde woman dragging a trolley entered the far end of the loft. This was city-Piper, family-Piper, and she would also require some getting used to, after all the continuous semi-nakedness and glorious bad hair.
"Hey," Piper waved a vague hand, ditched her suitcase next to the umbrella stand, and started walking towards her.
"Hey, babe!" she cried out, moving her dangling legs back and forth.
Remaining atop the kitchen island, Alex waited for the girl to reach her. God, she had missed her, and couldn't help but smile - which was a good thing, since that was precisely what she had to do. Having already made the conscious decision to convince Piper -since there was no other way-, it all needed to start with that greeting and that smile. That it was genuine didn't hurt either.
Piper positioned herself between Alex's legs to hug her waist. She seemed very happy to see her, but also tired. That was family for you. Alex took off her glasses and placed them next to her on the counter. She pressed her lips against Piper's and then against her forehead, lingering there like she was taking her temperature. Those two simple tastings of the girl's warm skin already made her want to eat her up. And the only explanation she could think of was that inside her, the individual wicks of love and desire were apparently lit by the same spark - a spark which undoubtedly had the face, body, and voice of the blonde woman standing before her. And, having thought about it quite a lot, she knew she could map the trajectory of those two wicks, to her heart, to her lower abdomen, and connecting both like a continuous circuit. A circuit, yes, which she usually visualized as an infinity symbol, with that spark running round and round, from love to lust.
So there was love born out of desire, and desire born out of love, with no way of separating one from the other, or even discerning which was which. No, because it was what it was. One feels what one feels, and calls it love, like it isn't a million tiny things at once, a million minuscule particles of foreign DNA bombarding our own cells and invading them - another person crawling into one's heart.
"Was it bad?" she asked, grinning at Piper's pouty lips, combing a couple of strands behind her ear.
"Worse. I mean, they're my family, but…"
"But they drive you nuts. You can't stand them."
"Yes. No. I don't know! I think… I think I've become unaccustomed to them? It's like we're not living in the same world anymore. They're also very suspicious about my life right now. I don't know…"
Unable to control herself any longer, Alex started kissing Piper's incredibly soft neck. She crossed her legs, capturing Piper between them.
"Well, you look like you could use a beer." She stretched her arm, reached into the paper bag, and waved one of the cans before Piper's eyes. The girl grabbed it quickly and drank with abandon.
"And your friend?"
"No!" Piper pointed at her with her index finger. "Don't even get me started with Polly. She's giving me hell, and she's right. I've all but ignored her during months, and it's not like I didn't have stuff to tell her. There's so much stuff I could write a goddamn book, but I couldn't make myself sit and phone, or write to her, and I don't know why, I don't know why I'm being so selfish."
"Whoa, what's with the blaming, Pipes? No, you're not. You're just finally living your life."
"Or… I'm living yours."
The brunette raised her eyebrows for a moment and uncrossed her legs, releasing Piper. When the girl didn't budge one inch, Alex used her naked foot to gently push her away. "Are you fucking kidding me right now?"
"I'm sorry," Piper glanced down, moved her hand over Alex's thigh, "that wasn't fair."
"No it wasn't. And also, fuck you." She kept her leg stretched out, as a way of maintaining Piper at a distance. "It's very simple, kid. Do you like being with me?"
"Of course I do, Al." She brought her hand down to Alex's foot and started caressing it, her thumb massaging her sole. "You know I do. I'm sorry."
"And you're having fun, right?"
"If I weren't, would I feel so fucking… disconnected to anybody else?"
Alex shrugged, but pulled back her leg, allowing the blonde to approach her once more and hug her. With her lips pressed against Piper's shoulder and those fingers she had missed so much caressing her hair, Alex felt she could finally close her eyes.
However, there was still the irksome matter of the pending job in Europe. It would mean not keeping those two aspects of her life separate anymore, but wasn't Piper a part of it already? Wasn't she much more than a tag-along? Alex thought about their trip to Bali, when her funds to treat her drug couriers had started running low. She had asked Piper to withdraw several money wires from a number of Indonesian banks, money sent by Fahri. That itself had been illegal, but it hadn't been a very big deal for Piper: either she hadn't known that making those withdrawals was a crime in itself, or perhaps she'd been able to convince herself to overlook that tiny detail because it had been a means to an end, a way for the adventure to continue, because Piper clearly did not want it to end.
"I came back as soon as I could," Piper was saying. "I felt like running all the way back here. Why do you feel real, but nothing else does?"
She turned her head and started kissing down Piper's neck, hooking her finger on the collar of the girl's shirt to expose her cleavage. With a wry smile, she foretold that Piper would do the job. It was quick and simple, and it provided her with a way out from her family- and friend-related duties, and all of their repetitive questions. Alex knew that Piper had stuck her head back inside her old life and hadn't liked it; she had grown unused to it, and used to the life Alex offered her. Ergo, if she wanted more of it, she would have to do this. Plus, it was another adventure. She wouldn't even have to "sell it" to the girl, or "pitch it" too nicely, because it would still be nothing but the truth.
"'Cause you're mine," Alex said, with a small headshake, thinking about the truth at its simplest.
Piper, however, frowned at her and stepped back. Alex watched her turn around and walk away from the kitchen island, but didn't react until Piper reached the living room area and sat on one of the sofas. Then, she jumped down, traced the girl's steps, and kneeled behind the sofa, resting her chin on her arms, and her arms on the back of the sofa. Piper wasn't turning around, of course, but Alex moved her hands to the woman's rigid shoulders and started massaging them. Then, she approached her lips to Piper's ear.
"And I'm yours."
That had an immediate effect. The girl's shoulders slumped, and then leaned into Alex's expert hands, which snaked under Piper's hair to gain access to her back. Piper bunched up her hair and tied it into a high ponytail, exposing the small fish on the back of her neck. For a second, Alex's eyes welled up, but she was able to make the wave recede.
The tattoo was still somewhat recent, but it wasn't scabby anymore, so its bright orange and blue colors stood out just like they did in the tropical waters. The morning Alex lost the blue bracelet Piper had given her, presumably in those same waters, they'd gone scuba diving and Piper had spotted the fish. She had followed it around while Alex followed her, and Alex had to wonder if there had been a single moment during their trip to the Seychelles where they hadn't been soaked in water, rain or no rain.
Her fingers traced the fins of the fish, and she bent down to kiss it, remembering that bad-girl-Piper with a tattoo would have to make that tattoo disappear to be an actual bad girl transporting a suitcase stuffed with drug money.
Having no idea of what Alex was thinking, Piper turned around and kissed her, her fingers closing around Alex's shirt and pulling her over the sofa. Alex slung a leg over the back of the sofa, climbing onto it as if it was a horse, and then slowly descended over Piper, who received her in the best possible of ways: by pulling at her clothes to take them off.
"What if I told you," Alex began, her words interrupted and muffled by the other woman's mouth. "What if I told you that we could be on the road again very soon?"
"Are you serious?" Piper stopped, opened her eyes.
"Just you and me, no more fellow travelers for a while. And…" she took a moment to bite on Piper's lip. "I know how you love Europe."
"Oh my God!"
"I know. You just have to say yes. Are you up for an adventure?"
"Yes, yes," Piper whispered, sliding her hands between their tightly pressed bodies.
The brunette gasped as Piper's fingers closed around her breasts, applying an intermittent pressure. She ran her tongue along the woman's lower lip, sinking the entire length of her body into Piper, rubbing her nipples against the palms of Piper's hands.
As they kissed, the blonde moved her hands to Alex's hips, and started pulling upwards, gently but stubbornly. Slightly amused, Alex complied, allowing Piper to do with her whatever she wanted. When she understood what that thing was, her smile changed. How she'd missed feeling that skin, and that mouth all over her body, and those hands, which were now easing her into a different position.
Alex's knees sunk into the cushions, her left hand holding fast onto the arm of the sofa, while her right closed around Piper's hair. The blonde's hands caressed up her thighs, reached her ass, and grabbed it to lower Alex onto her face.
She bent down her head to be able to look into Piper's eyes the moment the blonde started licking her, a cascade of black hair falling over her face. And, as her sex opened up for Piper's mouth in a kind of long-awaited mutual kiss, Alex started rocking back and forth, helped by the support that the arm of the sofa was offering.
With Piper's hands still firmly grabbing her ass to help her move, Alex felt the waves of pleasure radiating upwards, like a tree growing inside her, intermittently, with each stroke. And then, slowly but surely, Piper was also the one setting that same tree on fire, with its grey smoke clouding up Alex's brain. That was how she felt it happening, and pleaded for more, her voice low and growly, and her body trying to do all the work, but Piper's tongue was drawing smaller and smaller shapes around and on her clit, and it was happening faster than Alex could move her hips, and so they were colliding instead of moving in unison, but every collision brought her a little bit closer, just a little bit, until the fucking tree burst into flames and she was left whimpering and panting against the back of the sofa with a sweaty hand still enclosing a big chunk of Piper's blonde hair.
She dropped next to the girl, who was smiling and smacking her shiny lips. Alex kissed her, tasting the peculiar coolness of her own wetness, and then cuddled against her, for the moment too spent to function. She had missed her too much, and she shouldn't be forced to miss her again. That was another reason for working towards the permanence of their adventure. It was just too fucking important. In the grand scheme of things, what was the significance of transporting a little suitcase full of money?