Chapter Text
Actually, before anything between Ava and Beatrice can truly begin, Ava first has to deal with the fact that she has no fucking idea what to do next.
Obviously, she’s fucking thrilled that Bea wants to try this out with her, but also, Ava was planning on taking this whole kinky fascination to the grave, right along with the unfortunate truth that, despite her report to Bea, Ava was the one who shattered a whole shelf of shot glasses last Tuesday. Then again, she’d blamed it on an inebriated squirrel, so she’d probably already given herself away there.
The point is, Ava wasn’t intending on actually telling Bea about any of these fantasies. They were supposed to be a shameful secret, one that privately tortured her unbeknownst to anyone else. There’s something a little enjoyable about channeling the mindset of a tragically pining ghoul, cursed to wallow in furtiveness for all of eternity. Ava was going to live out the rest of her days emulating that iconic vibe of melodramatic yearning. That was the plan.
In an incredibly sexy turn of events, the plan has now changed.
Luckily, Ava is well-versed in handling jaw-dropping plot twists. That’s, like, her whole thing. She’s something of a situationally proficient ad libber. She’s “yes, and""ed all sorts of unbelievably crazy shit. That’s why, when Beatrice requested more explicit information last night, Ava was able to improv her way through an impromptu retelling of most of the scenarios she’s masturbated to in the last week; reciting them, in vivid detail, to the very person who starred in them. She then proceeded to lie awake for hours, in high-octane, viscous silence, when the aforementioned person somehow fell asleep afterwards. Seriously. Beatrice dropped the bombshell of a lifetime–“I think I’d like to try this with you”–and then knocked the fuck out. It was wild.
Ava was too paranoid to sneak off to the bathroom and get off afterwards, so she just lay there, so revved up she could’ve come from a single touch to her clit, and replayed Bea’s whispered “fuck” in her head until she fell asleep.
And now, she’s sitting at their tiny kitchen table, crunching on a burnt piece of toast, pretending not to stare at Bea, who’s pouring blueberries into her yogurt with a focused expression.
“So,” Ava says, jiggling her knee beneath the table. “How are you?”
“I’m well, thank you,” Bea says calmly.
An outsider may be dismayed by the nonreaction, but Ava’s fluent enough in Bea’s tells to know, implicitly, that she’s 1. nervous as fuck, and 2. dissecting this interaction live and in 4-D as they’re experiencing it. The level of concentration she’s displaying in garnishing her yogurt is way too intense for a non lethal situation. No one is this desperate to avoid a fruit overflow unless there’s explosives involved, especially since Ava’s always been crystal clear about her own willingness to eat nearly anything off the floor, incendiary blueberries included.
Even as a Beatrice enthusiast and scholar, It’s a little anticlimactic. Not that Ava had expected anything specific when she shuffled into the kitchen seven minutes ago, but she’d figured there’d at least be some deviation from their usual routine. Instead, she found Bea suspiciously tranquil and thumbing through the local newspaper like she does every morning, though she’s since set it aside, neatly folded like a freshly ironed shirt.
Ava lasts a total of nine minutes into this atmosphere before taking a sledgehammer to it.
“You’re really okay?” she probes further. “Not even a little freaked out?”
“Ava,” Bea sighs, lifting her gaze from her yogurt cup and locking eyes with Ava. “I’m fine. Are you freaked out?”
“Me? No. Why?”
“You seem agitated.” Beatrice points her spoon to the center of the table, which is wobbling slightly with the force of Ava’s knee bumping up against it.
“Well, you don’t seem agitated at all,” Ava retorts, a tad accusatory. “What, are we just gonna act like nothing happened last night?”
Beatrice’s unflustered demeanor falters a little. She averts her eyes, and shifts in her seat, pursing her lips together. “That’s not…I didn’t say that.”
Ava’s heart constricts in understanding. She stretches her arm across the table, offering a hand. “Bea. Can we talk?”
Beatrice glances back at her warily, a cagey expression flitting across her face as she takes Ava’s outstretched hand in her own. “We can.”
“Thanks,” Ava smiles, her chest warming at the feeling of their calloused palms scraping together. “I just want to know what you’re thinking. If you want us to forget about it, that’s completely okay. I get it. Just, be honest with me. Please.”
The ceramic tiled clock Ava found at a garage sale counts out the seconds that neither of them speak. On the ground level, cars pass by their street, and scraps of conversation slip through their bedroom window, cracked open a sliver, and seep into the kitchen. Ava watches Beatrice chew on her lower lip, teeth sinking down harshly, and squeezes their hands together.
“I don’t want us to forget about it.” Beatrice finally says, quiet, but firmly enunciated.
“Okay,” Ava says, the hushed confession resounding musically within her. “Then we won’t.”
“I’m just not quite sure how to proceed from here. This is…new. For me.” she admits.
“It’s new for me too,” Ava replies emphatically. “But, that’s why we have to talk about it, you know?”
“You haven’t…explored this with anyone else?” asks Bea, almost hesitantly.
“No way. Who else would–I mean, who would I have even done it with?”
“That…man.” Beatrice says slowly.
“J.C.? Nah, we didn’t do anything like that. He just kinda stuck it in.” Ava explains, illustrating the statement with a gesture that Beatrice scowls at. “What? It’s true! Plus, I didn’t even know I liked this stuff back then. This is a very recent development.”
A very recent development tied inextricably to you, is the underlying message that Ava hopes will be tacitly conveyed. She really isn’t sure what to do about the slew of unspoken feelings milling about below the surface–on her side, at least. She doesn’t know if Beatrice feels the same. It may look that way, but Ava’s misjudged a ton of other shit before. She walked into a glass door last weekend.
Still, it’s probably safe to say that Bea wouldn’t do this with just anyone. Right? Because Ava definitely wouldn’t. It has to be with Bea. Everyone else pales in comparison, J.C. very much included. He was sweet and everything, but whatever she felt for him then has long since been eclipsed by the ever expanding affection she has for Beatrice, squirming around inside of her like wriggly, googly-eyed eels. It’s honestly sort of cringy looking back on it now, with the hefty hindsight of someone genuinely in love.
Anyway, it should be known that Ava is fully aware of the irony at play here. How she’s all for divulging the dirty details of her sordid fantasy life, while the idea of telling Bea her true feelings is somehow still a step too far. She can see that. She’s just choosing not to acknowledge it. She’ll deal with it later. That always works out fine.
Bea’s brow knits together. “Very recent as in, you only recognized this interest after kicking me in the face?”
“After accidentally kicking you in the face,” Ava corrects. “And I made sure you were okay before I got weird about it.”
“How chivalrous.” Beatrice quips.
“Don’t be mean! I’m baring my soul here,” Ava says jokingly, before turning serious. “Look, however you feel about all of this, whatever you say, or think, I swear I’m not gonna judge. ‘Cause, like, how can I, but also, I just wouldn’t. I never would. You don’t have to worry.”
“I always have to worry.”
“Not right now. I promise.” Ava draws soothing swirls over Bea’s knuckles with the pad of her thumb. “It’s just us, Bea.”
That seems to erode much of her impassive facade. The stiff angles of her shoulders, jawbone and spine loosen into less rigid shapes, a departure for laxer formations, and she exhales as if physically dispelling some of the rooted tension laced within her bones.
She drops her head, exhales, and speaks. “I was being honest last night; I would like to–to try this with you. I’m just not as skilled as you are at speaking candidly.”
“I totally get that,” Ava squeezes her hand again, encouraging. “If it’s too much to dive right in, how about we take turns? Go back and forth? I say something embarrassing, you say something embarrassing. It’ll be fun.”
“Ava, what I’m getting at here is that we have very different parameters on what warrants embarrassment.”
Ava raises an eyebrow. “Do you seriously think I wasn’t fucking mortified when you walked in on me jerking off? That took, like, ten years off my life. I still haven’t recovered.”
“You still haven’t recovered? What about me? I had to–” Beatrice inhales deeply, nostrils flaring.
“What? What’d you have to do?”
“You aren’t the only one with needs, Ava. Most of us have the decency not to do it in a shared bed.”
Ava gasps in indignance. “I don’t have the stamina to do it standing up every time, okay? My legs are already sore from training!”
“You should be able to withstand that, we do the same conditioning–”
“Wait, Is this why you can squat for so much longer than me?”
“No, I–” A tiny upward movement dances across the corner of Bea’s lips. She stops talking as if it interrupted her.
“Beatrice. You totally just smiled.” Ava says delightedly.
“I did not.” The look of absolute annoyance at her own amusement makes Ava grin.
“You did too,” Ava crows. “Face it. I’m a comedy genius, and you get off in the shower.”
Beatrice stares at her for a second, face utterly impassive, and then, like dawn breaking, she starts laughing. First, it’s an understated sort of chuckle, the kind Ava’s heard before, and then she starts genuinely, whole-heartedly, cracking up. She throws a hand over her face as if to block Ava from seeing her, and Ava stands up with a clatter, determined to witness every millisecond.
She walks the two feet over to Beatrice’s side of the table, and by the time she’s standing over her, Ava’s laughing too. She clutches the front of her baggy t shirt and fucking loses it, propping herself up with one hand on the upper rail of Beatrice’s chair, and the other on her shaking shoulder.
“Oh my god,” Bea gasps out. “Ava. What the fuck?”
“What do you mean?” Ava replies. “It’s funny!”
“I don’t get off in the shower.” Bea insists, muffled by her own palm.
“What the fuck are you doing in there for twenty five minutes then? Every week, there’s one day where I go in after you and the water’s ice cold, but I don’t say anything!”
“Yes you do!” Bea says through a stream of giggles. “You tell me every time!”
“But I don’t tell you why.” Ava heaves in a breath, enjoying the hearty flood of oxygen into her lungs, her laughter dying down, washing out to sea, leaving behind pure, overwhelming affection.
Beatrice drops her hand, turns to look up at Ava, and Ava sucks in another mouthful of air, more urgently this time, because the sight before her is actually astounding. Beatrice’s adorably rosy cheeks are streaked with tears. She’s grinning, her eyes are half–lidded, like she’s tired herself out, and she’s breathless and so, so beautiful. Ava doesn’t even think before she’s reaching out and brushing at one of the trickling streams, collecting the wetness on the side of her curled index finger.
Bea freezes at the touch, eyes widening, then snapping down to watch Ava pull her hand back and hold it up, admiring the glint of liquid in the flickering fluorescent lighting of their kitchen.
“So pretty.” Ava says dreamily, and pops her finger in her mouth.
Her eyes close as she sucks the salt from her skin, a pleased noise rumbling out from her throat. Just as good as she’d thought. Just as good as she’d known. It isn’t like Bea can cry any flavor other than the default human one, but somehow, she tastes different. Richer. Better. An image flashes across Ava’s mind; Bea’s toned thighs locked snugly around her ears, boxing her in, Ava devouring the wetness spilling out from her center, ambrosia straight from the source.
The taste would be even better there. Even more unmistakably hers.
“Ava?”
Ava opens her eyes, tunes back into reality, and finds Beatrice sitting inhumanly straight, even for her, blushing up to her ears, Her mouth is hanging open a little, affording Ava a drool-worthy glimpse of her pink tongue. Entranced, Ava looks further, gaze traveling down until she arrives at Beatrice’s legs, which definitely weren’t crossed a few minutes ago, but are now. When she lingers there a moment, they noticeably tighten around each other, the hems of Beatrice’s shorts falling far enough to bare visibly flexing cords of muscle in her thighs.
“Yeah?” Ava continues staring, sticky heat pooling in her core.
“What are you doing?” Bea asks, waveringly.
Ava tears herself away from blatantly ogling Bea’s thighs and meets her eyes. “Can I be honest?”
Bea audibly gulps. “Yes.”
“I–”
As if pre-planned, both of their phones suddenly start buzzing away like fucking vibrators. Wait, no, something other than that. Shit. Ava’s so horny. They both jump, Beatrice grabbing hers off the table, while Ava heads into the bedroom to retrieve hers.
“Fuck,” Ava groans, reading the notification. “Bea…”
“Duty calls,” comes Beatrice’s voice, instantly businesslike. “Let’s try to beat your five mile time today.”
One brutal, marathon-tier run later, Ava collapses onto a patch of grass with a grunt of exhaustion.
“I’m dead.”
“You aren’t dead.”
“Okay,” Ava amends. “I’m dying.”
“It’s unfortunate that you couldn’t catch a second wind on that last lap.” Beatrice says.
“I’m kind of distracted today, Beatrice!” Ava protests.
She turns over onto her back, while Bea stands over her with a stopwatch and an unimpressed expression.
“Hm.”
“Come on,” Ava sits up and snags her wrist. “Sit down.”
“Ava…” Bea says warningly, but she allows Ava to pull her to the ground beside her without any additional protests.
“Just chill. Feel the breeze.”
“What breeze?”
“Close your eyes, it’ll be easier to notice.”
“I’m not closing my eyes. You’re going to do something.”
“What would I even do?” Ava snorts. “I bet you’re just scared.”
Bea cocks her head, the set of her jaw tightening minutely. “Fine.”
She shuts her eyes, leaving Ava to marvel at her priorities. Beatrice is the smartest person Ava’s ever met, and yet, she willingly walks into these traps, all for the sake of her competitive streak. Ava’s kind of obsessed with it. She lifts herself up onto her hands and knees, and crawls the short distance over to where Beatrice is sitting, taking care not to rustle any grass and give herself away. When Beatrice doesn’t give away any indication that she’s noticed her repositioning, Ava kneels down next to her, and leans in, a few inches from her cheek. If life were easy, she’d pull her in for a kiss, but as it stands, Ava blows directly into her face, just to be cute.
Bea’s eyes snap open and Ava only gets in half a maniacal chuckle in before she’s being tackled and pinned to the ground with the same ruthless efficiency and precision that Bea demonstrated during their sparring session the other day,
“Aw, what’d I do?” Ava asks, faux-innocent.
Maybe she bats her eyelashes a little, too, but who’s to say?
“You’re so…” Bea shakes her head in disbelief, but she’s smiling, entertained by Ava’s lovable hijinks, as per usual.
“Hilarious? Amazing? Sexy as fuck?”
“Incorrigible.”
“That reminds me–” Seeking to reenact the rest of their wrestling match, Ava grabs Beatrice’s arms, and, just like she had then, Beatrice allows Ava to roll them over, switching their positions and pushing her back into the grass. “–didn’t we do something like this recently?”
“As a training exercise, yes.” Beatrice says, sounding slightly winded, which Ava would attribute to exertion if Beatrice didn’t have the lung capacity of an actual superhuman.
Ava smirks. “Was that really just training?”
Bea’s freckled face, streaked with sweat, a smudge of dirt painted on the left side of her temple, flushes pink, even as she stands her ground, retorting: “Of course. What else would it have been?”
“I mean,” Ava curls her fingers a little tighter around Beatrice’s wrist. “You seemed kinda into it, Bea.”
At that, Beatrice makes a face that should be memorialized and hung in the Louvre. It’s the most fascinating medley of shyness, excitement, embarrassment, and affectionate irritation. Ava drinks it up and tries her best to note down all of the nuances, and resolves to take up oil painting. It probably isn’t that hard.
“Well, you didn’t seem particularly unaffected. Is this another interest of yours?” Bea counters. “Along with bringing me to tears, that is.”
“You could say that. I have a broad range.” Ava winks at her.
“...are there other entries in that range?”
“Like, are there other things I’m into?”
Beatrice blushes further, and looks away. “Yes, Ava.”
Ava releases her grip on Bea’s wrists and slides off of her, intimately aware of the dangers of straddling her, both in general, and during conversations like these. She falls into the grass on her back, still close enough that they’re shoulder to shoulder, and waits, wondering if Beatrice will opt out, move away, stand up and insist they return to the house.
When she doesn’t, Ava stares up at the sky, tracking the drifting clouds in an effort to calm the thrill unfurling inside of her.
“I mean, yeah,” she says. “There’s other things. Like what I was talking about last night.”
Beatrice’s arm twitches against hers. “Right. That makes sense. You were very, um, descriptive.”
“Too descriptive?” Ava asks, worried.
“No,” Beatrice quickly replies. “Not at all. It just made me wonder if you…wanted anything else.”
“There really isn’t anything I don’t want.” Ava says.
It comes out too heavy, too honest, a tangible presence in the air between them, but, luckily, Bea doesn’t seem to notice. “I see.”
“What about you?”
“Me?” Bea sounds taken aback.
“Yup. Any super secret fantasies you’re hiding?” Ava teases.
Bea abruptly sits up, her back rising into Ava’s view. “We should get back. Hans called in sick and I told him you’d cover his shift as an apology for last night.”
“Sick? He’s just hungover!” Ava jumps up, outraged.
“Be nice.” Beatrice chides, standing and stretching her arms upward.
The movement inadvertently causes her shirt to ride up, exposing a tantalizing glimpse of her stomach that Ava instantly zeroes in on. Enamored, she eyes the swell of softness sitting over top of her abs and imagines Beatrice pulling some cheesy porn move; shucking off her shirt and sports bra on the basis of this muggy Swiss summer day and smiling shyly as Ava lies her down on the ground and climbs on top of her to mouth at the warm plane of her sternum, then lick a stripe down the valley of damp skin between her tits, all the way to the dusting of hairs marking a pretty path to the waistband of her shorts.
“Fine,” Ava concedes, licking her lips, mollified by the daydream of Bea topless and sunkissed beneath her. “But only if I get a raise.”
“Negotiating salaries isn’t a part of my managerial position.” Bea says. “But I’ll put in a good word.”
Once they arrive back home, an unexpected bout of stress that Ava can only describe as purgatory descends upon them and lingers for the following several days, thanks to a boom of vacationing patrons at the bar and an uptick in Adriel’s creepy little poster boys dawdling on every corner. Flirtations are put on hold, and Ava is left to a concerned bystander to Beatrice bodily throwing herself into tackling this swiftly worsening shit show. There’s a new sort of tension hanging between the two of them, half unresolved horniness, half anxiety about the doomed state of the world.
Ava can only take so much of this before her mental state is reduced into a wad of bubblegum, stretched taut from the sole of a shoe to the pavement, threatening to snap if she doesn’t either get off, or punch Adriel in his stupid fucking face. The former is at least a little more attainable, so, after nearly a week of this strained atmosphere, Ava gets back from a late shift at the bar, trudges into the bedroom and falls onto the mattress dramatically.
“Beatrice.” she says.
“Yes?” comes a clipped response from their shitty excuse for a couch.
“I need to jerk off.”
A light thwack like Beatrice dropped a sheaf of paper from the stack she’s currently shifting through, supposedly a bunch of encoded OEC intelligence that arrived via some secret nun mail delivery service (that she refuses to explain the specifics of even though Ava asked super nicely) yesterday.
“...Okay? Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, I’m so fucking tired, and I really don’t feel like doing it in the shower so I was wondering if you could just, like, go in the kitchen for a sec while I rub one out real quick?”
Honest communication. It’s important.
“I can’t right now.” Bea says tersely.
Ava sits upright and frowns at the exhausted fervor with which she’s gathering the loose papers up from the floor.
“Shouldn’t you take a break or something? You’ve been busy all day.”
“Don’t you think that If I had the time to take a break, I would’ve done so by now?” Beatrice snaps, glaring up from the clipboard that must have materialized into their apartment within the last 24 hours.
“Not really. You never have before.” Ava points out.
Bea sniffs, irritated. “I resent that. I work in scientifically supported incremental stages. There are breaks built into my schedule.”
“I know, but everything’s been really stressful recently, and you probably need to take more time to recharge than usual,” Ava lights up “Oh, hey, how about you take a turn right after me? I swear, it’s so much better doing it on the bed–”
“Ava, can you please stop talking about masturbating? I need to focus on this.” Bea cuts in, before muttering: “Christ. I’m already distracted enough.”
“Huh?”
Beatrice grits her teeth. “I’m already aroused. This isn’t helping.”
“Then why don’t you–”
“Because, I should be able to control myself.” she spits out.
At that, Ava gets up and walks the short distance over to the couch. She doesn’t want to crush all the super important paperwork under her ass, so she ends up cramming herself onto the same cushion as Beatrice. An inch or two to the right and Ava would be sitting on her lap, which is a fun idea, but also not what Ava should be focusing on right now.
Bea sighs as Ava wriggles in next to her, but rather than frustrated or upset, she sounds relieved. Like as soon as their sides pressed together, she couldn’t help but feel relinquished of some invisible burden. Or, maybe Ava’s just projecting, because that’s how she feels when they’re together like this, close enough to feel each other, skin against skin.
“This isn’t about you not being able to control yourself, it’s about you cutting yourself some fucking slack. You’ve been working on this shit nonstop for, like, five days straight. You need to rest.”
“You don’t understand,” Bea shakes her head wearily. “I can’t just opt out when things get tiring. That’s pathetic.”
“Uh, no, that’s called taking care of yourself. Seriously, aren’t you supposed to be this huge proponent of self-care? You make me drink so much water that I almost pissed myself last week in the name of healthy hydration habits.”
“That wasn’t my fault–”
“Beatrice. All I’m saying is, where’s the self-caring for yourself? ‘Cause what I’m seeing is you chewing yourself out for literally just being a person.”
“For being an undisciplined person.”
“Alright, if you’re calling yourself undisciplined, I’m out, because that’s an insult to all of us slackers trying to make a name for ourselves in this cruel world.” Ava nudges Beatrice, whose expression softens.
“You’re hardly a slacker,” she nudges Ava back. “You’ve been making great strides. I don’t even have to wake you up in the morning anymore.”
“Why does that last part sort of feel like a diss?” Ava jokes. Then, in a gutsy play, she drops her head on Bea’s shoulder. “It isn’t wrong to want things, you know. Or to want to let go of things.”
“That’s rather astute of you.” Bea incrementally shifts closer, and Ava smiles.
“What can I say? I’m a deep thinker. ”
“And there’s the characteristic modesty.”
Ava laughs and pulls back before she does something insane, like huff Beatrice’s neck for a free, untapped sample of her scent; coconut shampoo, fabric softener, and a tinge of sweat that Ava would pay money to inhale directly from the thatch of underarm hair that Ava’s caught glimpses of when Beatrice wears tank tops.
“You know,” she says. “If anyone deserves to relax, and have a great fucking orgasm, it’s you.”
“I appreciate that.” Beatrice says with a tiny, indulgent smile.
Not long after that, Beatrice voluntarily resolves to break for sleep and finish the rest of her work tomorrow. Ava gives her a round of applause until she gets shushed, at which point they change clothes in the same room, facing away from each other, like always, the sound of their intertwined breaths a soothing metronome as they slide into bed together.
Once Ava clicks off the chipped lamp on her bedside table, a nebulous calm has fallen over the room, as if her and Bea’s talk cracked open the tension and spilled a blanket of comfortable companionship across the two of them. She tunes into her heartbeat, the steady, fast-paced thump of it, the momentary quickening when her bare legs brush against Bea’s, and locates heat and love and something resembling tranquility in the timbre.
“Ava.”
“Mhm?”
“A few days ago, you asked if I had any…fantasies.”
Aaand, there’s that all consuming pulse between her legs again.
“Ooh, right, I did ask that,” Ava says, in a terrible imitation of casualness. “Why? Did you wanna share one?”
“Maybe,” Beatrice whispers. “But, I’m not entirely sure how to phrase it.”
“You don’t have to get super into it if you don’t want to. You can just give me, like, a rough outline.”
Sheets rustle as Beatrice turns onto her side, facing away from Ava, who’s staring up at the ceiling, sifting through the darkness to examine a weird stain. It’s like a grounding exercise, except gross.
“Well,” Beatrice clears her throat. “There are times, when we’re sparring, that I’ve…reacted. Physically.”
“Cool, cool,” Ava wills herself to sound composed. “Totally get that. No pressure, but did you want to specify, or…?”
“It–it happens when you manage to subdue me, sometimes. I start thinking about…what could happen next. What you might do next.”
Ava narrowly holds back a groan in response to the sharp stab of arousal shooting up within her. “Yeah? What kind of stuff could I do?”
“Hold me down. Tell me…tell me how obvious I am. Tell me you know everything.”
“Oh,” Ava breathes. “That’s so hot.”
“Do you really think so? I’m not–maybe it’s strange?”
“It isn’t! It’s so fucking sexy. Wow. Um, what happens after that?”
“You have to swear not to laugh.” Beatrice says solemnly.
It’s such an innocuous statement, such an objectively cute thing to say, but Ava instantly feels the gravity of the request. This is a big deal. She needs to keep her shit together, and be supportive, no matter what.
“I swear.” Ava vows.
“You’d tell me you know just how desperate I am,” Beatrice murmurs, shy, confessional. “And then you’d say you have to…punish me.”
Ava is just proud of herself for not coming untouched in that very instant.
So, yeah. She doesn’t laugh.
Not then, not the day after, nor the day after that. Never once does she so much as crack a smile about what Bea told her. Honestly, Ava may never laugh again. Not even a snicker. She may as well have lost the capacity for humor altogether. Why wouldn’t she, when she’s learned something so absolutely, irrevocably, insanely fucking hot?
By the time two days have passed, Ava is sweating bullets and sneaking into the bar bathroom at five PM to wring a covert orgasm out of herself just to retain a semblance of sanity, because she and Beatrice decided to explore the content of her most recent divulgence over the weekend, and it’s finally fucking Saturday.
An important caveat: the aforementioned exploring may very well be hands-on.
How did this happen, you may ask? Essentially, Ava is never braver than when she’s agonizingly turned on and engaging in kinky discussions with Beatrice. She should use this power for good sometime, but it probably wouldn’t be helpful when it comes to defeating Adriel and his goons. Still, It’s something to think about.
In this case, her boldness ushered in an ability to ask Bea if maybe she’d like to delve into that fantasy a little. And, Bea had said yes. And then Ava had, once again, laid awake next to her for hours buzzing with adrenaline and anticipation. It’s like that’s Bea’s signature move in capping off sexy late night conversations. And Ava just had to live out the rest of that night, and the reminder of this week, with the knowledge of what’s to come (pun notintended but nevertheless appreciated) embedded into her fucking psyche.
Needless to say, her work day goes disastrously. She screws up five different orders, and keeps waiting for Beatrice to give her a stern talking to, but instead, she just gets these smoldering glances like she knows exactly what Ava’s been up to in the only bathroom stall that locks. That, or maybe she’s just glaring because, again, Ava is fucking up. A lot. It’s probably both.
When she and Beatrice finally get back to the apartment and reconvene in their cramped bedroom that evening, Ava has essentially been edging herself for the last two forty-eight hours. This isn’t to say that she hasn’t come at all, it’s to say that she literally can’t come enough to be satisfied. It’s fucking wild. She’s perpetually turned on.
Even more so now that shit’s officially getting real.
“How’re you feeling?” Ava asks Bea carefully. “Do you still wanna try this out?”
“I do,” she answers seriously. “Do you?”
She’s sitting on the bed, hair loose around her shoulders while Ava paces around the room. Bea had looked at her weird for forgoing a seat, but there’s a method to Ava’s madness. She didn’t want to be pushy, or overly excited, or creepy in any way, shape or form, and, if you think about it, sitting on a bed together is kind of forward. Like, there’s an implication there.
Never before has Ava fucked with Victorian-era sensibilities towards modesty, but she’s so hyperaware of how delicate a situation this is that existing in Beatrice’s proximity without either of them covered in a barrier of knee-high socks and fifty thousand petticoats feels a bridge too far. If only they could both close their eyes before delving into this conversation. As it stands, she’s implemented a buffer, which means she’s standing, Bea’s on the bed, and there’s an awkward section of empty space between them as they’re talking.
“Same,” Ava says. “I…yeah. I wanna try it.”
“Okay,” Bea says. “Is there a particular way we should begin?”
Over the past couple days, Bea’s attitude towards this entire thing has evolved hugely, most likely because Ava texted her some websites with informational kinky FAQs, and Bea loves shit like that. She’s currently channeling the energy of someone participating in a corporate debriefing, which Ava is honestly kind of into. She would look so hot in a suit. Fuck.
“Hm, lemme think…” Ava rips herself away from that alluring fantasy and curses herself for not preparing a dossier. “First off, did you check out those links I sent you?”
“I did. They were very illuminating,” Bea says, sounding impressed. Ava rejoices inwardly for totally calling it. “I also reviewed the color system you mentioned.”
“Nice,” Ava gives her a thumbs-up, because she’s too preoccupied to worry about how dorky that looks. “So we’ll be checking in with each other just to make sure things are going okay. Lots of talking, lots of touching base, all that good stuff….anything else?”
Bea holds up a questioning hand. “Yes, are you at any point going to sit down?”
Ava affectionately rolls her eyes at the teasing tone, her nerves easing and giving way for pure, mouth-watering anticipation. She walks over to the bed, and Beatrice stands, allowing Ava to situate herself on the end of the mattress, sitting upright with her feet planted firmly on the floor.
“I gave some thought to the question of boundaries within this experience,” Beatrice continues. “And none immediately came to mind, but I was thinking we could discuss that as we check in with each other?”
Ava looks up at her, reaches forward and grazes their fingers together. “Of course. Same with me. We’ll talk it through.”
Wordlessly, Beatrice squeezes their hands together for a second, before letting go and staring down at Ava’s lap as if running through the correct positioning.
“So, I guess you just kinda climb on.” Ava says.
“Right.”
Beatrice positions herself on the side of the mattress and cautiously lowers herself down, until her stomach is pressed against the tops of Ava’s thighs.
If it wasn’t clear before, this has all been building up to Ava spanking her.
Bea’s reference to wanting to be punished was vague at first, but she seemed emboldened when Ava replied with wholehearted interest, and ended up explaining further, which really didn’t help the state of Ava’s underwear, but did help her discover yet another unknown sexual interest. You learn something new every day. Or, every night. Either way,
Ava’s into it.
When Beatrice seems to have gotten comfortable (over Ava’s lap, fuck, wow, this view is…wow) Ava places a tentative hand on her back. “Comfy?”
“Relatively.”
“So, just to recap, red means stop, yellow means slow down, and green means go.” Ava says.
“Understood.”
“Why’re you talking like a drill sergeant?”
“We agreed on clear communication.” Beatrice says.
She’s facing away, her cheek smushed into the mattress, but Ava can see the flush spreading over the tips of her ears and nape. She trails her hand further, arriving at the top of Beatrice’s shorts. Ava can feel her breathing pick up, her stomach expanding and retracting with each breath she takes as she’s draped over Ava’s lap so beautifully.
Ava takes a calming inhale, and pinches the waistband of her shorts. “Can I pull this down?”
“You can.” replies Bea.
Heart leaping in her throat, Ava grabs on to the elastic band sewn around lightweight polyester and slowly pulls, revealing plain gray boxers, stretched tight over the swell of Bea’s ass and thighs. Ava actually has to shut her eyes in order to gather herself, because she’s that fucking smitten. She’s never felt more blessed to have inherited the Halo than in this very moment. Well, this very moment, and every other one she’s spent with Beatrice.
Ava makes her way through these sappy musings as she gingerly drags Beatrice’s shorts down to her knees and leaves them dangling there, curious if she’ll kick them off. When she doesn’t, Ava breaks the thickly percolating silence.
“Want me to take the shorts off all the way?”
“No.” Beatrice says. She turns her head to press her face more firmly into the mattress.
“Aw,” Ava coos, officially losing her filter because, again, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. “You’re all embarrassed.”
“Ava…”
“What? Am I wrong?” Ava waits for a response, smiles when, rather than verbally answer, Beatrice shakes her head no. “Thought so. Now…”
She settles her palm on Beatrice’s back again, a calming weight, steadies herself and speaks. “Should I take the underwear off, too?”
“...it’s up to you.”
Ava pauses. “For real? ‘Cause, if it’s up to me, I’d take them off, but I don’t wanna–”
“That’s fine.” Bea interrupts. “I don’t mind.”
“You don’t mind, or…” Ava slides a finger beneath the waistband of her underwear, inching across smooth skin. “You want it?”
Beatrice squirms. “Just take them off, Ava.”
“Gotcha.”
Ava takes a breath, readies her racing heart, and does as she’s told, pulling the underwear down and drawing on every last ounce of willpower within her not to exclaim in pure joy as she gradually reveals Bea’s perfect fucking ass. If Ava could get away with it, she’d kneel down and pray right about now. The curve of her ass cheeks are just…fuck. As a lifelong atheist, Ava can believe that God had a hand in this creation.
“How’s that?” she asks. “Color?”
Beatrice turns her head again, facing away from Ava, probably to avoid suffocating in the mattress. Ava leans forward a little, craning her neck, and catches a glimpse of Beatrice’s bright red face, scrunched up in anticipation, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth.
“Green.”
“I’m gonna touch you now, okay?”
Beatrice nods.
They both exhale when Ava’s hand skirts down from the hem of her shirt and brushes across bare skin, supple and freckled adorably. Ava has to actively swallow a string of drool threatening to leak from her mouth as she grazes her palm over the roundness of Bea’s ass. Not to harp too much on the God thing, but Ava probably could’ve been at least slightly religious if she’d only seen Bea naked sooner. As it stands, she’d rather worship this way, exalt these sweet desires of the flesh, and prove them just as worthy of veneration.
Once her hand reaches the dip down the back of Bea’s thigh, she stops, admiring the goosebumps appearing in the wake of her fingers, the little hairs standing on end, all indicating the path they took.
“Beatrice,” Ava sighs, overcome. “You have such a cute butt. Why were you hiding this from me for so long?”
“I wasn’t hiding it from you, it just isn’t as normal to walk around pantless as you think.”
“Who cares if it’s normal? It’s you.” Ava says, reverent.
Bea makes a noise of acknowledgement. It sounds a little like a whimper, actually. Ava doesn’t say anything, just eyes the hint of dark hair curling out from the crux of Bea’s legs. Is she wet right now? Her thighs are restricting any potential hints. Would it be weird to ask? Probably. Ava’s just gonna have to hope for the best.
“Okay,” Ava announces nervously. “I’m gonna, uh, go for it. Is that…are you still good with that?”
“I am.” Bea says shakily.
“...you sure?”
Beatrice shifts forward, her lower body lifting slightly as she settles herself a little further on Ava’s leg. It’s unclear whether she’s aware that this is raising her ass higher, as if she’s presenting herself, but Ava notices it anyway, and wonders if excessive arousal can cause spontaneous human combustion.
“Ava, I’ll tell you if I want to stop. I remember the color system. We’ll check in continuously. And, well, I’m…I’m happy to be doing this with you. I can’t imagine it with anyone else.”
“Bea…” Ava’s heart squeezes in delight.
“Now, please continue, because my arm is going to fall asleep soon, and I’d like to try this before that happens.”
“On it,” says Ava. “Here we go.”
She raises her hand, moves her wrist back and forth a couple times to gauge the strength, and fucking goes for it.
First, she registers the sound. The crack of palm against skin. She doesn’t hit very hard, but it’s there. It’s there. Her head swims with it.
“Was that okay?”
“It was,” comes Bea’s strained response. “You can continue.”
Second, she notices Bea moving in her lap again, except this time it seems more purposeful, like she’s seeking out something specific.
“How about that? Color?”
“Green.” Green.” Bea replies instantly.
Third, she recognizes the warm pressure against the side of her thigh, the ticklish sensation of hair against her skin, the sudden slide of hot, wet heat, and–
“Oh,” Ava whispers. “I can feel you.”
And then, Bea whines. She fucking whines. Rocks forward again. Ava feels a little like screaming. Her core pulses in meter with the thrust, which is speedily cut short as Bea seems to realize what she’s done. Before she can even think about feeling self-conscious about it, Ava speaks up.
“You can do that all you want, Bea. You can do anything you want.” It’s a little too earnest, a little too blatantly in love, but Ava can’t find it in herself to worry about it. She just needs Beatrice to believe it.
She lifts her hand and lets it fall once more, a little more heavily. Beatrice jolts, her hips rutting downward, crying out, a soft, husky little thing that may as well be the most beautiful song Ava has ever heard.
“Fuck, Ava.” Bea mutters under her breath.
Alright, maybe the song’s gonna have some competition. Maybe everything Bea says is a song. Maybe everything she is, everything she’ll ever be, is just another manifestation of art. Ava thinks this, fits the thought in her hand, and brings it down again, harder. When she pulls away this time, there’s a handprint where she struck.
“So good,” Ava caresses the reddened area, relishing the heat of it burning off Beatrice’s skin. “So good for me.”
Beatrice groans out something that sounds like a request for more, so Ava repeats the action a few times, slapping and soothing, until Beatrice finds a rough sort of rhythm, grinding down continuously with small, broken-off noises.
“You like that?”
“Yes.” Bea hisses.
Ava grins. “How much?”
“I–oh–” she stutters when Ava moves down to cup her ass cheek, testing the soft heft of it in her palm, with what can only be described as a grope. But, like, a respectful one.
“Color?”
“Green. Green.” Beatrice repeats, one for each slap that Ava delivers with increasing force. “God, fuck. I’m…it’s good.”
“Just good?”
“Great. It’s great.”
“Yeah,” Ava murmurs. “I think so too.”
She rains down a few more blows, taking care not to lose herself in the sensation, not to strike too hard, or too soft. Bea keeps moving, keeps moaning, because they’re moans now, slivers of indulgence, pockets of pleasure and happiness and everything she should always feel. It’s amazing. Ava’s hardly aware of her own arousal. She’s so turned on it’s actually insane, but she can’t even think about it, she’s too involved in Bea, in Bea feeling good, feeling great. Feeling better than great, hopefully. She decides to aim for that.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Mm?”
“Does it feel good? Humping my leg while I spank you?”
Okay, so maybe those weren’t moans before. The sound that Ava’s words draw out from Bea’s throat, now that’s a moan. Loud and unrestrained and hotter than Ava can even conceptualize.
“Can you come like this?” Ava is about to punctuate the question with a slap to angry skin, when Bea suddenly shifts, and she freezes. “You okay? Color?”
“Green. I need to touch myself.” Bea pants out.
Ava’s body pitches forward uncontrollably at the words in a desperate bid for friction. She stills herself, and focuses back in.
“Okay!” she says, or possibly yells, she isn’t really paying attention. “Okay, do it! Should I keep going?”
“You can stop. Just–” Bea shoves an arm between her body and Ava’s lap. “Just talk to me.”
“Um, uh,” Ava frantically searches for a sexy comment, but her brain is sizzling, frying in the heat. “You–you’re…holy fuck, I’m so…can I touch myself too?”
“Sorry, I’m about to come, could you wait one second?” Bea asks politely, her shoulder shaking furiously, elbow digging into Ava’s lower stomach.
“Yeah, yeah, no worries! Just go for it!”
“Yes,” her knuckles knock against Ava’s leg, reddened ass bobbing as she grinds forward. “Ava, I’m–”
Ava gets down to business. “You needed this, huh? Needed to show me how you fuck yourself?”
Bea sobs out something incomprehensible, nodding fervently.
“Can you turn your head? I wanna see your face when you come.”
When she does, Ava chokes back an adoring gasp. Her face is screwed up in concentration, in pleasure, her eyebrows drawn together, jaw slack, lips trembling slightly. She’s making these gorgeous noises, thrusting hard and fast, chasing her orgasm unabashedly.
“Oh my god,” she chants. “Oh my god, Ava, oh my–fuck!”
Ava watches, captivated, as Beatrice stiffens, rocks her hips forward jerkily, once, twice, three times, a keening moan falling from her mouth as great, trembling shudders quake across her body, muscles rippling beneath skin, her hair loose and falling into her face, damp with sweat, sticking to her forehead.
She fucks herself on Ava’s leg, all delicious tremors, and breathy gasps, and a gush of wetness down the side of Ava’s thigh, and, then, a tear, slipping out from the inner corner of her right eye, glimmering as it trickles down the side of her nose, over the curve of her upper lip, and into her open mouth.
That tear slithers into Ava’s very being, wrenches at her heart and lungs and soul and pussy, tethers itself to her essence and hangs on for dear life. By the time Bea lets out a satisfied sigh, and melts into her lap, Ava is actually vibrating with need. She waits until Bea’s eyes flutter open, a lazy smile spread soft across her lips.
“Bea, please, can I–”
Bea’s eyes widen as she registers Ava’s pleading. She whips her arm out from between them, and her hand catches on Ava’s arm, soaked fingers smearing across her skin as she inches away from Ava’s center to afford her room, while still lying across her lap. Ava reaches down and immediately sets a merciless pace against her slick, hard clit, swearing up a storm as the throbbing, broiling heat surges up, up, up, up
“Fuck! Beatrice!” she rasps. “I–shit, I–”
She wrenches open her eyes and finds Bea staring at her, a trail of wetness glittering down from her eye to her chin, an expression of such intensity etched into her features that Ava is sure she looks the same, in this moment, in this second, and in each one following.
“I love you.” Ava breathes, and proceeds to come all over her hand.
She bows her head, body curling in on itself in pleasure as she rides out the aftershocks. She’s distantly aware of the mental alarm bells clanging at the confession, as well as a startled “fuck!” but the ringing between her ears largely drowns out the clamor. It isn’t until she lets out one last, gleeful moan and collapses back onto the mattress, trembling and panting, that she finally registers what she’d said.
Dazed and wildly apprehensive, she slowly raises her head, and…wait. Her lap is empty. What the fuck?
“Um…Beatrice?”
At the worrying lack of Beatrices in her line of sight, Ava scrambles upright, only to find her lying on the floor on her back, pantsless, with her elbows crossed over her face. Perhaps most confusingly of all, her entire upper body is shaking with the force of what looks and sounds like uncontrollable giggles. Ava just gawks at her for a second, before wading out of her punch-drunk, post-orgasm haze and sliding off the bed to kneel next to her.
“Did you fall?” she asks, horrified.
Beatrice drops her arms to her sides and sits up, bringing their faces mere centimeters apart. The instant Ava notices her expression, all of her anxieties are allayed. She’s never seen Beatrice smile like this before, like she doesn’t have a care in the world, like she’s completely satiated. It’s fucking amazing.
“You kicked me off.” Beatrice laughs.
“Fuck, really? I didn’t mean to! I’m so sor–”
Beatrice cuts her off with a kiss.
It takes a second for Ava’s brain to catch up, but once it does, she surges forward and gives as good as she gets, kissing back with a passion that lives like twining live wires in her chest, at last allowed to carry an electric current through the circuit of their interlocked lips. Ava is about to lick into Beatrice’s mouth when she notices the Halo’s lively humming within her back, and forces herself to pull away before she accidentally explodes something.
“Shit, sorry, I don’t want to blow anything up.”
Bea chuckles, gently knocking her forehead against Ava’s. “That would probably be for the best.”
“And here I thought my pyrotechnics were charming.” Elated and sated and soaring with lovestruck giddiness, Ava nuzzles their noses together.
“Only because you’re charming.”
“Mm,” the Halo’s steady chugging dies down to a pleased purr. “And why’s that?”
“Too many reasons to name.”
Ava blushes. “Yeah, well, same for you. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“Anyway, didn’t you have a little something you wanted to say back? Maybe you’ve been thinking about it for a while, and–”
“I love you too, Ava,” Beatrice softly replies. “Also, I think you teared up a little. That’s somewhat ironic.”
Ava’s eyes widen. She reaches up, brushes a hand across her face, and, when her fingers pass over a sticky tear track drying halfway down her cheek, she laughs.
Later on–Ava doesn’t know exactly when; she’s pretty sure they exist outside of the space time continuum now, entangled in a snapshot of something perfect, in all its rawness, in all its imperfections–Ava wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and peers up at Beatrice through the upside down steeple of her legs. “So, we’re dating now, right?”
“Oh,” Beatrice gasps out, her head thrown back against the pillow, tits heaving as she catches her breath. “Yes, that would be nice.”
Ava drops a kiss to her soaked inner thigh, darting out her tongue to sample her wetness; to taste her, to touch her, to know her, to love her.
“The crying thing is surprisingly hot, huh?” Ava asks brightly, resting her cheek against the warmth of Beatrice’s leg.
“It is,” Bea laughs, warm and wonderful. “I never would have known if you hadn’t told me about it. Thank you for showing me that. Amongst other things.”
“Same here,” Ava says with a smile. “Thank you for showing me, Bea.”