Chapter Text
Emma’s classes the next day seem to stretch from hours-long discussions into days-long slogs as she watches the second hands on each lecture hall clock lumber laboriously toward the new-minute mark. Six o’clock feels miles away, and Emma finds herself repeatedly checking her phone to make sure that this is actually happening, this day is actually carrying her toward Audrey. Toward their date. Her date. With Audrey.
1:42 a.m.
Audrey Jensen
hey. uh so sorry it’s late and hope this doesn’t wake you up but, as promised, a plan for our date. meet me behind my dorm at 6 see voo play
1:43 a.m.
Emma Duval
Don’t worry, I was up anyway. Thinking about you.
1:43 a.m.
Emma Duval
Can’t wait.
1:50 a.m.
Audrey Jensen
jesus
1:50 a.m.
Audrey Jensen
me either
Emma runs a thumb over the bubbles of text. Her stats professor says something about probability. He might as well be talking about the scientific precedence for unicorns. It’s 3:12 p.m., her last class of the day.
By the time Emma gets out of stats it’s 4:15, and she sails home to immediately recommence her closet reconnaissance. Around 3 a.m. last night she’d passed out cold wearing an old band T-shirt over a rumpled sundress, wholly convinced that all of her clothing was terrible. Now, she bravely dives back in, carefully considering several outfits before deciding on one that strikes a nice balance between “cute” and “not trying too hard.” The black denim skirt is definitely a date night pick, but the worn baseball tee she wears with it is something Audrey has seen her in a thousand times.
Oh, God. Emma realizes. This is her first date. With Audrey. With AUDREY, her best friend who she’s known her entire life. Her best friend who has seen her worn baseball tee a thousand times. They are dating now. Publicly. This is real.
This is going to blow up in your face , a cold voice remarks from the back of Emma’s brain. You’re not going to be able to make this work, because none of your relationships ever work.
Emma sits on her bed and takes a few deep breaths, her hands on her knees. She thinks of the grounding techniques her therapist had taught her. She can feel her hands on her knees. She can feel her bare feet on the cool, hardwood floor. She can feel the soft denim against her thighs. She is here. She is okay. She lets her negative thoughts float by— Like leaves floating down a stream, Dr. Stanger always said—and envisions herself nodding to them as they pass. They’re just thoughts. Your thoughts are not your truth.
After a moment, Emma lets her eyes flutter open. Her breathing is more even, her shoulders noticeably relaxed—until she looks at the alarm clock by her bed and sees it’s 5:54.
Emma snaps to attention, dashing to slip on her canvas flats and stand before the floor-length mirror for one final once-over. She smooths her hair down. Messes it up again. Smooths it back. She briefly considers applying makeup, but then ignores the impulse. She’s barely worn a drop in months.
She roots though her purse one final time, making sure all she needs is accounted for: phone, wallet, keys, chapstick, emergency anti-anxiety medication, lavender essential oil. Check.
As she turns to run out the door, the gleam of her tarot deck case catches Emma’s eye. It’s been ages since she’s done a spread. Now is a time when she could definitely use divine guidance.
She shakes the deck out onto her bed, beautifully illustrated cards scattering everywhere, and picks one out of the pile at random. She turns the card over to reveal a naked woman draped in blue. The World: completion of a journey, peace of mind, ease, wholeness.
Emma clutches the card to her chest for a moment before slipping it into her purse and heading out the door.
—
Audrey is waiting for her, fidgety hands in pockets and one Chelsea boot-clad foot against the wall. She wears a red plaid button-down with the sleeves rolled up. Her shirt is tucked into slim-leg black pants that matched her shoes and belt, her dark hair still a little shiny-wet from a recent shower. There’s a bite mark on her lower lip from where she’s been nervously gnawing, and two small pools of sweat collect on the cloth beneath her underarms.
Emma’s heart begins a free-fall, her throat clenching and a familiar warmth blooming between her legs as she takes Audrey in. She silently thanks the universe that she’s rounded the building in such a way as to see Audrey for a moment without Audrey also seeing her. Emma doubts she looks her best when struggling to pick her jaw up off the floor.
Emma collects herself for a moment, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and managing another deep breath, before she finally approaches Audrey.
The other girl immediately lights up at the sight of her, standing upright and extracting her hands from her pockets, a beaming smile erupting across her face as she greets Emma with a, “Hey.”
Emma smiles in return. “Hey.”
“You look...” Audrey shakes her head a little, her gaze flitting over Emma’s body. “Wow.”
Emma can feel a blush rise in her cheeks. It’s so crazy how they can just do this now. Acknowledge how much they want each other. In public. She swallows, her heartbeat picking up speed. It’s intoxicating.
“You’re looking pretty wow yourself there,” Emma replies with a smirk.
She steps closer to Audrey, crowding her against the brick wall of the building. Audrey widens her stance, and Emma instinctively slides into the space between her legs, her index fingers curling around Audrey’s belt loops. Her knuckles brush against smooth black leather. The cool, piney scent of Audrey’s deodorant tickles her nose.
Emma places her lips on Audrey’s lightly, a lingering hello kiss. But as she starts to pull away, Audrey runs a hand through her hair and cups the back of her neck, pulling her closer. Emma opens her mouth with a sharp intake of breath and their lips slide together, Audrey biting at Emma’s lower lip before caressing it with her tongue. Emma licks into Audrey’s mouth, her thoughts going fuzzy and the heat building between her thighs as their tongues meet. Audrey moans, soft and low, and Emma’s whole body aches with it.
They lose 15 minutes like that, embracing behind the building as their kisses build in urgency, one of Audrey’s legs eventually slotting between Emma’s, until suddenly, Audrey pulls away, strangely alert.
“Oh, God,” she laughs, glancing at her watch. “It’s like, 6:30 already.”
Emma huffs a little, struggling to catch her breath. One of her hands is still at Audrey’s waist, the other resting against her neck. “What does that mean?”
Audrey kisses the spot where Emma’s neck meets her shoulder then pulls away from the wall, dragging Emma by the hand. She smiles as she pulls the both of them toward the parking lot at the back of her dorm building. “It means we need to go!”
They drive for some 45 minutes, fingers intertwined on the gearshift and lips locked at red lights. They mostly make nervous small talk, Emma lightly teasing Audrey about this grand romantic surprise, but occasionally Audrey shakes her head and laughs. “God,” she says, over and over. “This is so crazy.” Emma laughs, too, a kind of joy bubbling up in her that’s too buoyant to tamp down.
They leave Lakewood behind and bypass a few small towns: rickety mobile homes and roadside restaurants, Ford F-150s gleaming proudly in American flag-draped driveways. Maggie had taken Emma through one of them, once, to pick up some Craigslist furniture when she was a kid. The family they’d bought a living room set from had been incredibly nice, a couple in their forties who fawned over Emma and offered the both of them sugary, butter-packed foods. Emma can hear Nina’s voice scoff in the back of her mind: Trailer trash . Emma had always found it comforting to remember that, beyond the comfortable wealth of Lakewood, there was so much more to explore.
Audrey eventually turns down a dirt road that leads into a field, her headlights barely illuminating anything in the early fall dusk. Suddenly, they come upon a lightbulb-laden sign, and Emma discovers their destination: Grand Sky Drive-In.
“Oh my God,” Emma gapes, as the giant screen and a scant smattering of cars come into view. “I had no idea this was here.”
Audrey just smiles and pulls up to the ticket window, asking for Two, please . The attendant tells her to tune her radio to 870 AM, and Audrey nods dutifully, repeating it back to him. “870. Got it.”
They roll through the parking area, Audrey maneuvering around their few fellow audience members to stop in the middle row, just a bit to the left. Emma smiles. Remembers how Audrey’d ranted that “the wrong view can ruin a moviegoing experience!” during a passionate sixth-grade tirade.
Audrey turns the keys in the ignition, the car’s quiet rumble dying down as the lights stay on and the radio resumes its pleasant crackle on 870 AM. Audrey taps Emma’s thigh. “You want anything from the snack bar?”
Emma smirks at her. “As if you don’t already know my order.”
“Fair point,” Audrey says, giving Emma’s leg a squeeze before opening the car door. “Just trying to be chivalrous.”
“Wait.” Emma catches Audrey’s hand as she moves to leave, pulling her in for a searing kiss. Audrey’s hands tangle in Emma’s hair, her knee resting against the center console as she leans into the passenger seat. It only lasts a moment, but when Emma lets her go, her head a little lighter, she realizes that for a moment she’d completely forgotten where they were.
Louisiana, unfortunately, reminds them soon enough, as a pack of sauntering boys with sunburnt noses and Guy Harvey shirts passes the car, three women trailing after them. The group’s leader lets out a low whistle and smacks the frame of Audrey’s open door.
“Yeah, kiss her, man,” he chortles, and Audrey instinctively turns to glare at him, realizing a millisecond too late that she’s made the wrong move.
“Woah,” one of his friends laughs, elbowing him and nearly spilling his badly-bagged can of Natty Ice. “That’s not a dude.” He narrows his eyes at Audrey, then looks at his friends. “That’s not a dude, right?” He takes a step forward, blocking Audrey from closing her door.
“I don’t think so,” one of the girls giggles under her breath, leaning into a brown-haired guy in the back of the pack.
“Can you fuck off?” Emma snaps, her arms crossed. Audrey, tense and upright in the driver’s seat, shoots her a wide-eyed glance.
The guy with the beer squats down to Audrey’s level, staring into her eyes. There’s ratty stubble on his chin and nicotine staining his teeth. “Whatever you are, you sure can’t control your woman, huh?”
The group behinds him titters.
Audrey swallows, the hand that Emma had grabbed just a few minutes ago now twitching in her lap. Anger roils in Emma’s gut. These guys know Audrey is a woman. They know because this is what men do—intimidate women, make them smaller. Make them feel like they can’t be in public or do what they want. Like they can’t laugh, talk, be loud. Like they can’t kiss other women.
She sees the terrified way Audrey’s fingers clench, and she stays silent.
“You gonna answer me, faggot?” The beer drinker lingers persistently in Audrey’s eye-line, belches.
Audrey shakes her head almost imperceptibly. A few of the interlopers ooh and laugh, reveling in her passivity. Emma has the violent urge to open her car door and spit onto the ground at her right.
Just as the tension between the groups is about to snap, blaring light illuminates the car and the radio comes to life.
Let’s all go to the lobby, let’s all go to the lobby… it warbles, as animated junk food do the can-can on the screen before them.
“Are you still gonna buy me funnel cake before the screening?” one of the women asks, tugging on the sleeve of the guy next to her. He wraps an arm around her jean-skirt-straining waist; Emma’s cheeks flush at the ease of it.
“Yeah, Glenn, let’s get some food,” the leader instructs, slapping the beer-drinker lightly on the head. “We can check up on this science experiment later.”
Glenn suddenly makes eye contact with Emma and leers. She thinks, absurdly, that he has beautiful eyes—clear, blue-green. The kind of wild gaze she might have fallen for in high school.
“I’ll see you later, beautiful,” he tells her, like he can read her thoughts. Her sour stomach turns. “Have fun, faggot,” he tosses to Audrey, ruffling her hair for a moment before he rises to follow his concessions-bound friends.
Audrey slams the door and locks it as soon as he’s out of sight, and the silence between them settles cold and strange. Emma glances at a bead of blood on her thumb—she hadn’t even realized she’d been picking at it.
“I’m sorry,” Audrey says finally.
“You’re sorry ?” Emma spouts. Audrey winces at the force of it. Lower this time: “Audrey. That wasn’t your fault.”
She shrugs. Laughs without humor. “Then I’m sorry I’m too chickenshit to go get you snacks now.”
Emma puts a hand on Audrey’s knee, rubs her thumb in circles when she doesn’t flinch away. “Hey,” she tells her. “Look at me.”
Audrey does. Emma stares at her, brows furrowed.
“That kind of thing happens to you a lot, doesn’t it?” Emma asks.
Audrey just nods.
Emma sighs, cracking a half-smile. She squeezes Audrey’s knee. “Then I’m sorry.”
Audrey smiles back, then suppresses her grin. Deadpans, “No, Emma. I’m sorry.”
Emma laughs. “ No , Audrey, I’m sorry .”
She pokes her in the shoulder. Audrey laugh-scoffs and pokes back, the both of them falling into a gasping joke fight that ends in teary-eyed mirth. They slump back against their respective car doors. Audrey’s foot is slung over the console, her boot knocking against Emma’s knee. Emma looks at her, little out-of-breath laughs escaping both their mouths in a syncopated rhythm. The space in between sounds a lot like I love you .
Audrey grins. “Come here,” she tells Emma, as she opens her door and slips into the backseat. They squish together in the middle, staring at the screen through the gap between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. Audrey puts her arm around Emma. Emma holds Audrey’s hand against her right shoulder, hunches down to tuck her head into the curve of her neck.
The radio crackles and blares to life as the drive-in’s previews start up.
“You sure you don’t want anything to eat before this thing starts?” Audrey whispers.
Emma shakes her head no, her wisps of hair tickling the edge of Audrey’s jaw.
“How often do you have to deal with that sort of thing?”
Audrey laughs, even though it’s not funny. “Like, literally all the time.” Emma squeezes her hand, hard.
Audrey shrugs, softly moving Emma’s head up and down with the gesture. “I didn’t survive two serial killers just to get done in by some bro who’s mad I can pull off this haircut better than he can.”
Emma smirks. “I know you can take care of yourself,” she says. “I just care about you.”
The feature starts in front of them -- a kitschy wide-release horror flick that will later engender a five-minute rant from Audrey about the derivative nature of modern cinema. But you cheered and laughed and even teared up, like, three times, Emma will point out to her. I just love movies! Audrey will shout. Emma’s heart will do an affectionate, exhausted little dance in her chest, because she gets to fight with this idiot for the rest of her life if she wants to.
“I really care about you,” she says again, more softly, the crown of her head against the pulse point in Audrey’s neck.
“Yeah,” Audrey tells her with a hint of awe. “I know.”
—
They don’t even have to ask each other if they’ll end up going home together. It’s as inevitable as the potholes in the concrete, the lights on Audrey’s dashboard, the moon idling gently in the sky. They’ve been growing toward this like plants stretching up to the sky.
Hand in hand, they move toward Audrey’s room like magnets toward metal. Audrey doesn’t ask Emma if she’d like to come in, and for a flash she worries she’s being presumptuous and rude, but Emma uses that flash to slam Audrey’s door shut behind them with her hip and pull Audrey in for a bruising kiss. She doesn’t appear to be offended.
Audrey pushes Emma against the door, her hands in her hair and then running down the sides of her body and then holding her hips in place as she kisses her mouth, her chest, her neck. There’s a blush creeping all the way up from Emma’s chest to her cheeks, her lips slick and rosy and her eyes blown. She softly moans and clenches her fingers in Audrey’s hair. Audrey backs up from Emma, takes her in in all her pink-and-gold glory. She wants to see where that blush begins. She is so hard it quite literally hurts.
Audrey skates her left hand over Emma’s shirt, feeling the weight of her breast and the hard press of her nipple against her fingers. Emma is not wearing a bra. She is wearing a skirt .
Audrey is definitely going to come out of this encounter with full on brain damage. She soldiers on anyway.
Emma stays flush against the door, her breath coming in shakily through her mouth and her fingers trembling against Audrey’s scalp. Audrey slips her hand under Emma’s shirt and caresses her soft skin (Jesus Christ), the subtle swell of her chest (Hail Mary, Full of Grace), the sensitive point of her nipple (Sorry, Dad!).
“Oh, fuck me,” Emma breathes, and the intonation makes it clear that she meant it in the you’ve got to be kidding this is too much way, but that sequence of words flowing out of Emma’s mouth goes straight to the center of Audrey’s thighs regardless. The phrasing isn’t lost on Emma either, who looks at Audrey with a mix of mirth and unmistakable lust. Jesus, Audrey loves her. Her brain fucking screams. Audrey loves her!
Audrey smooths her right hand down the side of Emma’s hip, hitching up the side of her skirt. She slips her fingers below the hem, feeling the warm expanse of Emma’s thigh. “Can I—” she starts to ask, before Emma cuts her off with a “ God yes.”
They’ll have time for more slow, exploratory fucking later, Audrey reasons, as she pulls Emma’s underwear to the side and touches the wet warmth of her labia. She nearly crumples right there, like a marionette with its strings cut, but Emma beats her to it, going slack against the door as she lets out a high-pitched moan.
Audrey kisses her, offering her own murmurs of pleasure as she strokes Emma’s lips all the way up to her clit, reveling in just how fucking wet she is for her. “You feel so fucking amazing,” she whispers, her left hand since migrated from Emma’s chest to the back of her neck, holding them both upright. She pins Emma to the door with her legs. She can feel her back going rigid against the door, her legs trembling slightly, her breath coming in faster.
“Fuck,” Emma breathes, her head back and her eyes closed. Beautiful. “Fuck, I’m going to—”
Something in Audrey snaps to attention, and she huffs out a little laugh as she withdraws her hand. “Nope,” she says, shaking her head. She gathers Emma’s legs around her waist in one fell swoop and Emma instinctively clings to her neck, laughing. Audrey carries her over to the bed and flops both of them down. “Our first time is not going to be against a dorm room door.”
Emma laughs. “Right. It’s going to be on a dorm room bed.” But she’s taking off her shirt anyway.
Audrey shucks off Emma’s shoes, helps her unzip and shimmy out of her skirt. Audrey kicks off her boots and unbuttons her shirt, but stays in her pants and undershirt, always feeling her strongest in a classic tee-and-chinos combination.
She gingerly removes Emma’s underwear after a decisive nod, and then there she is. Emma Duval. Birthmarks and stretch marks and freckles and hair and so, so much more perfect than Audrey could have ever even dreamed. She looks into the other girl’s eyes, her hair fanned out over her pillow and mouth self-consciously agape. And she says it. Out loud this time.
“God, I love you.”
Emma’s eyes shine, and she smiles so bright and big it feels like daytime. “Yeah,” she exhales. “I really love you, too.”
Audrey grins. “You really do?”
Emma pulls her down over her, laughing. “I really, really do.” She kisses her, soft and slow. “I’m sorry you have to keep being the first one to say it.”
“Hmm,” Audrey hums against Emma’s neck. “I think there’s other stuff that I can get you to say that I never would.”
Emma squirms, adjusting her legs so that one of Audrey’s thighs is solidly between them. Christ, Audrey can feel her even through the fabric of her pants.
“Oh yeah?” Emma asks. “Like what?”
Audrey cocks an eyebrow at her, smirks. “Like my own name.”
Emma laughs and pulls Audrey down again. “We’ll see about that,” she says against Audrey’s mouth, her hands traveling under the hem of her shirt.
Perpetually up for a challenge, Audrey softly bites Emma’s lower lip and returns her right hand to the sensitive, slick area between Emma’s legs. She strokes her with two fingers, and Emma instinctively arches her hips up to meet her.
Audrey uses her other forearm to pin her down. “I’m gonna take care of you, baby,” she says, and she kisses a line down the side of her throat.
I’m gonna take care of you, baby —it’s such a baldly sincere, un-self-conscious phrase, the sort of thing Emma would have never expected to hear from Audrey in bed. Especially not in such a low, sure voice. She must have had practice. She must have talked to other women this way.
It doesn’t make Emma feel jealous. It makes her feel like her cunt is on fire.
Audrey continues to work her up with slow, steady strokes, the tips of her fingers lighting up Emma’s nerve endings every time.
Had sex with a guy ever felt like this? Sex with a guy had never felt like this. Not even in her most passionate moments. It had always felt like a performance. A sequence of moans and touches required to unlock a guy’s attention. She was not herself, she was whatever a guy wanted her to be. In that state of mind, it was hard to ever really feel what was happening to you, even if your body was responding the right way. There was always a disconnect.
Here, Emma felt everything : The static electricity cracking between her strands of hair and Audrey’s pillow case, the subtle callouses on Audrey’s hands as she stroked Emma’s skin, the sweet exchange of moisture between them as Audrey’s sweat mingled with her own. It felt like her brain was singing, like tension was building all the way up the center of her body, pulling her taut like a bowstring. Heat filled her, her ears buzzed, she started to feel her legs tense, like the had when she’d been this close just moments earlier against Audrey’s door.
Audrey kissed her neck, her breasts, her nipples, increasing the pace of her hand without relinquishing pressure. “I’ve got you,” she murmured into the air between them, and Emma wrapped her arms around her torso, feeling the bare skin under her white shirt, and cling on for dear fucking life.
“I've got you, Emma, it’s okay,” Audrey coaxed. She licked a kiss into the space right where Emma’s jaw met her neck, below her ear, and whispered, “Come for me.”
It only took a few more strokes before Emma topped her head back, her hips arched, a staccato of moans blossoming from her chest. She ground her cunt against Audrey’s hand, her brain a whiteout of pleasure and electricity and fuck fuck fuck , this , the hardest she’s ever come
in her life. Technically, she does it twice, another wave crashing over her just when the fuzzy end of the first has started to seep its way through her. The pleasure of it all is almost too much, and she cries out pleading nonsense— Fuck and Jesus and Audrey, Audrey, Audrey .
Eventually she’s left, softened and sweat-soaked, tingling radiating through the tips of her fingers and toes. Audrey extracts her fingers from between her legs, sucks on them matter-of-factly, and leans jauntily over Emma, her hands resting on either side of her torso.
She tilts her head cockily. “Told you so.”
Emma giggles, hiding her face behind her hands. “Oh my God .”
Audrey kisses each of her hands, settles down in the place next to her shoulder. She folds her arms and legs around her until she fits just so, stroking a thumb over the sweaty expanse between Emma’s breasts and her bellybutton.
Emma laughs harder, uncovering her face. She turns to face Audrey, grinning. “I just can’t believe we just had sex with each other. You and me.”
Audrey smiles back. “Yeah, I’m mentally high fiving sixteen-year-old me so hard right now.”
Emma considers something, her tongue between her teeth, then rolls to crouch over Audrey, her hands framing Audrey’s face. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” Audrey replies.
“Can I take your clothes off?”
Audrey raises her eyebrows, swallows. “You may.”
Emma strips her slowly, deferentially, reminding Audrey of the way her mother used to peel the tape back from all the gifts she received, preserving cheap wrapping paper like it was fragile and priceless. Her undershirt is the first to go, then her pants, then her underwear. Finally, her sports bra. Audrey’s body is a jumble of taut muscle and soft, curved edges -- a battle between will and biology. She sits there, propped up on her elbows, while Emma takes her in with a flush in her cheeks and her mouth slightly agape.
“You’re beautiful,” Emma tells her, and just like that, it’s a fact. The stretch marks on her round thighs, the hair that runs patchy from her belly button to an unruly triangle between her thighs, her oblong breasts, the dots of acne on her chest, her unshaven legs, all of it -- beautiful.
“Can you kiss me now?” Audrey asks hoarsely, and Emma does. As she leans down, she runs a hand along Audrey’s side, across the bone of her hip. She passes her fingers over the hair between her legs.
Emma huffs out a laugh. “I, uh, kind of don’t know what I’m doing?”
“It’s okay.” Audrey smiles. “Or, well, I mean, you’ll figure it out. I’ll help you figure it out.”
Emma laughs in earnest. “Oh yeah?”
Audrey throws her hands out, like, Am I wrong? “Just because I wear pants doesn’t mean I don’t want to come!”
Emma hmms, leaning in. She presses a kiss to Audrey’s neck, her collar bone, her chest. “Just because I wear skirts doesn’t mean I’m a pillow princess,” she says into Audrey’s skin. Her lips meander lower and lower, kisses occasionally replaced by licks or bites. Audrey’s breath comes shorter and faster.
“Jesus, where did you even learn that term,” she murmurs, and Emma looks up from between her legs.
“Hey, Audrey, can you shut up for a second?” she asks sweetly. Audrey nods and bites her tongue, suppressing a laugh.
She shuts up for exactly one second, before Emma presses her mouth into the center of her cunt and all bets are off.