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You kiss Ellen, and she doesn’t react at all. Just goes stock-still, and you’re about to get mad at her for being too damn decent of a person to let you make a mistake in peace when finally, she does kiss you back.
It’s the slightest press of her lips back into yours, but it’s there. Tentative and unsure, and it reminds you of the first time you ever kissed her, in the backyard behind the Outpost, when you didn’t even know yet that it was her first time kissing a girl.
She exhales shakily when you part, and you hold so still, keep your eyes closed in the hope that maybe you won’t have to open them and talk about this. You’re very nearly about to give up, too, but then – then she pulls you in with the hand that’s resting on your neck, and presses her lips to yours.
It’s steadier this time, even a bit hungry, and the sheer familiarity of it washes over you like a breaking wave. The way her mouth moves against yours, the smell of her skin – you know this. You’ve missed this. God, you’ve spent a long time missing this.
You kiss her back, and suddenly you know what you’re doing, suddenly it’s easy.
You thread a hand into her hair, and she pulls you in by the waist, her hand finding its place in the warm space between your jacket and your sweater.
You open your mouth under hers, and after a moment’s hesitation, her tongue darts out to lick against your lower lip, and then, you’re just – making out, the way you would’ve ten years ago, before anyone ever got their heart broken.
At some point, you move down to kiss her neck, and she gasps when you press your lips to her skin. You scrape your teeth, suck a little - not enough to leave marks, of course, Ellen always used to worry about someone seeing and that probably hasn’t changed. But: you can imagine.
Her thumb brushes the outline of your bra through your sweater, and this one small thing should not do as much for you as it does.
You slide a hand under her shirt, and you can tell it’s cold from the way she jumps, but she doesn’t curl in on herself – no, she leans into it, her breath hot against your lips. You slide your hand up a little, feel her trembling, and you’re just starting to think about how far you can possibly take this in public when –
Suddenly, Ellen pulls away from you completely. Hastily disentangles herself, turns back to the water, hands folded in her lap.
You look at her, alarmed – did you do something wrong? – but then, you finally register the noise of the car engine in the parking lot behind you. Another second, and the headlights fully hit you both, illuminating Ellen’s flushed face and messy hair. You’re sure you don’t look much better.
Whoever drove onto the parking lot kills the engine, and the lights with it. You hear voices, doors slamming, the clang of beer bottles. Probably some kids who’ve come out here to get drunk.
“Well, that was close,” Ellen says, but she doesn’t sound scared at all – on the contrary, there’s laughter in her eyes.
And you laugh too, because really, it’s ridiculous – the two of you, both over forty now, almost getting caught making out on a pier in the middle of the night like teenagers.
Well. So much for having this place to yourselves, then.
For a moment, you sit there in awkward silence. You can only halfway make out Ellen’s face in the dark, after the sudden switch to light and back.
Then, Ellen takes a breath, turns to you.
“Do you… want to go back to my place?”
Of course you wanted her to ask. Still, your stomach twists. If you say yes, you’ll wind up crossing even more lines than you have already. And the further you take this, the more it’s going to hurt when Ellen inevitably gets back to her life and disappears from yours again.
In your head, you know all of these things, but also – also, there’s the flutter of your heart against your ribcage, the flush in your cheeks, the ache between your thighs.
Ellen’s always made you weak.
“Yeah,” you say, looking down at your feet.
“Yeah?” she asks quietly, and you feel the urge to box her arm.
“Yeah,” you tell her, and get up, hold out your hand to help her. “Come on.”
Side by side, you walk back the length of the pier, across the parking lot. She’s all smiles, and seeing her this happy still does something to you, rare as it always was.
You can feel the same glow on your own face, too, as you get back into the driver’s seat.
“No getting handsy, I need to focus on driving here,” you tell her sternly.
She nods exaggeratedly. “Of course,” she says, wryly serious, and that makes you both laugh again.
You will your fingers to stop shaking, and put the key into the ignition.
The address she directs you to is not even five minutes’ drive away, an unremarkable house in one of the more expensive lake neighborhoods.
You park the car in the driveway, turn it off, and suddenly, the tension between you is thick again.
This is it – your last chance at getting out of this with your conscience halfway clean. You could tell her goodnight, and she’d get out of the car, and in fifteen minutes, you’d be back on the Interstate.
But you don’t. Because right now, all you want is to feel more of Ellen’s skin against your own. You can worry about everything else tomorrow.
Ellen’s hand finds yours on the handbrake.
“Let’s get inside?” she asks, still so tentatively hopeful.
“Let’s,” you agree, a lot more decisively, and let go of her hand to open the car door.
As you walk over to the house, Ellen’s measured steps get faster, and you match her stride, grinning. Seems like you’re not the only one who’s eager to have a closed door between you two and the rest of the world.
Ellen fumbles the keys out of one of her pockets. It seems to take forever, and you ball your hands into fists because you can hardly bear to stand there not touching her. She throws you an apologetic smile, clearly impatient herself, and God, her beautiful face is even more gorgeous in the soft glow of the porch light.
Finally, the door clicks open, and once you’re inside, Ellen slams it shut with the flat of her palm. Half a second later, you’ve got her backed up against the wall, your lips against hers, open, searching, wanting.
And suddenly, Ellen is right there too, meeting you where you’re at – kiss for kiss, touch for touch, hunger for hunger. Your mouths slide against each other’s, her tongue against your teeth nipping on her lower lip, messy and so fucking hot.
Maybe it’s the fact of the closed door behind you, maybe it’s that she’s more at ease at home, but it’s like all of her insecurity from before has been washed away.
It’s Ellen who takes your hand and leads you up the stairs to her bedroom, Ellen whose hands start pulling your shirt over your head, Ellen who pushes you down into the mattress, kissing you over and over as the silky fabric of her blouse caresses your bare stomach.
She wants you just as much as you want her.
Somehow, you didn’t expect that. Oh, you figured she wanted you enough – enough to come after you in the Outpost’s parking lot, enough to kiss you on the pier, enough to take you home with her. But not like this, not with this kind of… fervor.
She sounded so happy with her life, back at the Outpost. So settled, so content. But content people don’t want like this.
You know a thing or two about that. And you meet her with all your hunger, too.
You scramble to pull her blouse up, and she helps you get it over her head, and you just can’t have her close enough. You lean up to press your face into her body, frantically kiss her sternum, finally fall back against the covers when your abs begin to protest. Ellen’s hands caress your ribcage, which’s rising and falling quickly with the breath in your lungs.
For a moment, she looks at you like she can’t quite believe you’re real.
But then, she shakes herself out of it, bends down to kiss you again as you arch into her and it all feels so, so good, pure joy bubbling through your veins along with desire.
You know each other, is the thing. Know how your bodies fit together, know just where to put your hands and exactly how hard to touch. You don’t have to be slow and careful with Ellen, and she isn’t with you, and you wouldn’t want her to be. What you want is this: fast and messy and fun and just – happy, exuberantly happy.
And for a while, that’s all there is: you and Ellen, close as you’ve ever been, just making each other feel good.
•••
The come-down’s normally a bit of a struggle for you, but normal’s got nothing on this.
You’re lying on your back in Ellen’s bed, your chest still heaving with breath from how hard you’ve just come, and as you stare at the ceiling, reality crashes back into your brain.
You cheated on Elise.
She doesn’t deserve that, and she’s going to be so, so hurt when you tell her.
You feel awful at the prospect of that conversation – but somehow, it’s not even the scariest thing about tomorrow. Because the scariest thing about tomorrow is that in the morning, whatever you and Ellen have shared tonight will be over. No matter how good it all felt, she’ll go back to her life, and you’ll go back to yours, and really the most fucked-up thing of all is how that makes you feel so much worse than the pain you’ve caused Elise.
Also, Larry could be home any minute, and you just really don’t want to see him, or at least not be forced to make conversation with him. You forgave Ellen a long time ago, but Larry – Larry, you’re still angry with.
Somehow it’s this, the silliest, smallest thing of them all, that brings the tears to your eyes, and you furiously blink them away. You’re not going to cry. You’re not going to ruin this before it’s time.
Beside you, Ellen shifts on the mattress, reaches out and takes your hand. She pulls it up to her face, kisses the inside of your wrist.
And then, she lets go and slowly, carefully wraps an arm around your midsection. Shifts her weight closer on the mattress, cuddles right up against you, and for all that the sex was amazing, this is the thing that feels like it might stop your heart in your chest.
Back when you were together, you were always the one reaching out to touch her, after sex. In the good times, it was very nearly mutual – her curling into you as soon as your fingers brushed her skin. By the end, it felt like you were trying with all your might to hold onto her, and she was tolerating it at best.
And never once did she reach out for you in a moment like this, entirely of her own accord.
You angle your head so you can look at her where she’s curled around your arm.
She notices your movement, looks up at you, smiles.
And just like that, your foolish poet’s heart begins to hope.