Page 55 of Strap In
‘Sit back against the headboard.’ Jean complies, angling a pillow to sit vertical behind her back. And Ava pulls off her boyshorts, rising to plant a knee either side of Jean’s leg.
Ava reaches down to part the lips of her sex, spreading herself wide as she sinks onto Jean’s thigh. The hot slide of her sends Jean into a frenzy. Her fingers bite into Ava’s hips, rocking her until the whites of her eyes show. Her breasts are irresistible as she rocks, and Jean seizes a nipple between her teeth.
In retaliation Ava’s hand snakes between their thighs, rubbing flush against Jean’s sex. A cry rips from Jean’s throat as Ava’s fingertips catches her clit, achingly tender. Then they’re coming together, falling to lie slumped against the pillows.
‘Fuck,’ Ava breathes, the shallow rise and fall of her chest. ‘That was intense.’
‘Was it good for you?’ Jean twists against her, their bodies slippery with sweat. ‘I mean, four orgasms and you did the work for all of them.’
Ava smirks. ‘Because taking a beautiful woman to bed is such aterriblehardship. Woe is me!’
Beautiful.Ava has repeated it often enough. But with no barriers between them, the word pierces Jean. ‘You’ll tell me, though? If you think I’m being selfish.’
‘There’s nothing selfish about giving me exactly what I want.’ Ava’s fingers, still buried inside Jean, curve enough to unspool the argument in her throat. ‘I’ll never get tired of doing this; of making you come.’
‘You might,’ Jean gasps. She rests a hand on Ava’s arm, and at once her fingers ease their way free.
‘And the sun might stop shining.’ Ava gathers Jean into her arms, tugging the sheet up to cover their cooling bodies. ‘The moon might fall from the sky. The stars might all go dim.’
Out of every possible combination of words in the English language, not one exists that is both adequate and safe. But Ava doesn’t seem to expect a response. Her breathing slows, as does the hand caressing Jean’s back.
All the same, Ava has shared some vital part of herself; exposed her jugular to sharp teeth and claws. Jean can’t pay her back in poetry or professions. But there is one truth to share. The certainty that’s sat within Jean all these weeks is clawing at her throat, persistent as an itch.
‘Ava?’ Jean kicks off the sheets, sweat pooling in the hollows of her knees and elbows.
‘Mm?’
‘I’m going to tell you something.’
Ava rolls onto her side to look at Jean, scrubbing sleep from her eye.
‘And it doesn’t – it can’t – change anything. But you ought to know.’ Jean’s stomach churns, the ease of her orgasm drained quite away. ‘I don’t think I’m straight.’
Ava’s silent for a long moment, brows drawn together. ‘Thank you,’ she says at last. ‘For telling me.’
‘You don’t seem surprised.’
She reaches down between Jean’s legs, her fingers slipping through the residual slickness. ‘This.’ Ava eases her fingers into Jean’s mouth, and she licks them clean, tongue swirling. ‘Is a dead giveaway.’
‘No, but I mean – beyond the obvious. There’s a difference between sexual tourism and a real basis of attraction.’ Jean addresses the freckles on Ava’s shoulder. ‘Or at least a lot of lesbians on the internet seem to think so.’
Ava snorts, breath ruffling Jean’s hair. ‘The fact you went online and researched this is Peak Jean.’
‘Fuck you, don’t laugh at me.’ But the giggles are catching, as they so often are with Ava.
‘I’m not laughing at you. But you’ve got to admit you’re relentlessly Type A.’
‘I have to admit nothing.’
‘Seriously, though. I don’t think straight people spend much time or energy interrogating the possibility that they might not be.’ Ava adjusts the blanket, tucking it over Jean’s shoulder. ‘That said, there are some pretty standard tells.’
‘Such as?’
‘When Gillian Anderson comes on the television, do you ever think about how hot she is?’
Jean huffs a sigh. ‘Hasn’t everyone felt that way since the mid-nineties?’
‘Good point. Next question: in your personal life are you particularly drawn to women?’
