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She needs to stop thinking altogether, Vastra concludes, as she supports Jenny’s weight against the wall. Just…stop thinking, and get on with it. Get on with pressing her face into the junction of Jenny’s neck and shoulder, exhaling against her skin, teeth just barely scraping the surface. She is careful not to look at Jenny, but less careful not to leave scratches; Jenny doesn’t seem to notice as she arches up into her, crying out.
Vastra had tried to keep Jenny at arms’ length, both physically and emotionally, but it hasn’t quite worked out that way. Jenny finds ways around it, catching her off guard in her most vulnerable moments without even seeming to realize she is doing so. Even now, she is pulling her legs in against Vastra’s back and thighs, pressing them even closer together. Although Vastra has allowed Jenny to touch her quite freely at this point, it’s usually not intimate so much as economic, an efficient means to an end. She looks away from Jenny’s face, thinking that she cannot bear to see her touch, but in reality she cannot bear to be rejected by her.
That first night, Vastra thought that she would have to kill Jenny tomorrow. A month later, she thought that she could always kill Jenny tomorrow, if she had to. Somehow two months have gone by, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and in the sound and fury of her mind she does not know which one of them she wants to kill anymore. Vastra wavers between cold dismissal and fierce self-hatred; every time she indulges in this dalliance of theirs is an opportunity to break the cycle that she is unwilling to take for fear of the unknown.
The idea of tomorrow scares Vastra. She has spent so long alone and she cannot commit to planning for the future, this future, in this time and this place and maybe with this woman. Attachment cements a reality in which she cannot return to what she once knew. And oh, what would the Doctor say? It does not matter. Vastra does not particularly care what anyone thinks, beyond a vague desire to keep Jenny coming back to her, although even that is variable. If anger is the shortest distance to a mistake, and Vastra’s anger put her in this situation, perhaps she could at least scare Jenny off, make it her choice to leave, to change. She cannot decide if it is better to be left alone with her maddeningly spiralling thoughts.
Her original intention was to take it out on Jenny, or she thinks it might have been anyway. How convenient to have such a willing and… enthusiastic partner. But Jenny likes it, confounding her at every turn—now she’s just taking it out on herself, through Jenny. She is the conduit into which Vastra channels her anger, and confusion, and yes, passion, for many things. It is admittedly, a nice change of pace to have some outward direction for these thoughts and feelings. It feels good to focus on someone other than herself for once. It feels good to feel good for once, and forget herself for a while. Vastra has come to know Jenny in her own way—not violently, just taking a vicious pleasure in getting her off with increasingly creative methods ever since their first fortuitous nighttime encounter.
For reasons that Vastra cannot fathom, this woman is attracted to her, but she does not question the truth of it. After all, she can read it in her skin, her scent, her pulse. Unanticipated by Vastra, Jenny reads her right back. Even though they do not speak of it, Vastra can sense that Jenny has an awareness, at least, of some of her inner turmoil. Honestly it would be difficult not to, given that they have been fucking intensely several times a week for a few months now. Against all odds, Jenny understands her, able to anticipate her next move and also seeming to grasp something of who Vastra was before, and is even now, still. In her more positive moments, Vastra considers encouraging those perceptive abilities, of finding a place for Jenny to truly develop her skills. Up until this point she has refused to fully engage with the society she has found herself in, and as a result she is not quite sure how to make that work. In her more negative moments, Vastra is too overwhelmed by frustration and anguish to consider any progress at all, desiring only to remain in this temporary state.
The idea of tomorrow does not bring with it the promise of a new future, merely a continuation of what has come before, repeating endlessly. Tomorrow is hardly different from all the yesterdays that came before, except that Vastra has selfishly drawn another into her circle. And tomorrow, she knows, they will be at it again.