Cordelia scowled at the telephone.
'Right', 'wrong', 'yes', 'no', and 'nearly dead' were a-blaze and a-whirl in her head.
Her voice, however, was poised. Soft. Nice, even. Maybe. No. She was a little dazed, some how everything seemed a little funnier than usual, but all in all still the same old conniving bitch. If anyone forgot that, well, she wasn't going to be accountable.
It felt so good to be in control again; she was mystified was she was inviting... this. Her.
"Hello, is Willow there? Oh, hi. Willow, this is Cordelia. I was just thinking that you're probably a walking abyss of trauma right now, and I was wondering if you'd like to come over and hang out some. I've got a hot tub that's very much indoors. Mmm? Okay, see you in a few."
Willow hung up the phone with a dazed smile. Was Cordelia more than the miles of phone cord away? Were the fight, the thuds, the shrieks, and the thunderstorm of hapless little feet on hapless little bodies more than the inch of plywood that was the door away from her, twenty four hours ago? Her skull was a few millimeters thick, probably more; how did it all add up? Did she finally have the lucky number? Red or black? She'd already made out treacherously with mad luck once, and she felt like she was on a roll or a drug. Maybe if she just went to Cordelia, she'd be one closer to three, the charm of which might subdue the onslaught and reverb in her head, the buzz of the ghosts, a punch or an inch or a moan away.
Willow stared at the receiver. Good God. She'd accepted the invitation. Fuck. What would it be? Humiliation? A heart to heart? One horrible girly teen torture or another...
Stupid clumsy vampires, letting her have a little taste of that full body fear and then letting her free but for the grace of one A-bomb shell...
Didn't she learn to just say no?
Why did she continually walk right into these death traps? Why wouldn't she just learn: you don't go out walking by yourself at night, you don't make eyes at strange dark boys, and you don't gamble your cravings on the queen bitch. Cordelia keeps her tiara razor sharp, and you still want to run your hands through her hair.
But Cordelia was more than just an Adrenaline rush-push-and-the-land-is-ours kind of mindfuck. Willow kicked off clothes and trudged over to her closet. Off with her head and off with her panties; she leaned on the inside wall of her closet and let her hands run down her body. She could just imagine the damage Cordelia could do.
O woe was she, secret tart of Sunnydale, along and pondering whether she would fare death by teeth or death by tease...
Completely in character, Cordelia was emptying her clip at Willow's clothes as she ushered her in.
Cordelia took one look at the swimsuit peaking out of Willow's sundress and balked, "Willow. That bathing suit deserves the cruel and unusual. God. We don't want the plants to die. I'm really trying to be a more conscientious person and taking care of the environment is not a passive activity. I'm sure I've got something that might fit you..."
Willow followed Cordelia into her bedroom and dissolved into giggles at the clear warpath of a whole fucking clothes cavalry.
"Cordelia, you could clothe the USSR with this closet."
"Totally. Stalin would have cracked if he would have had to face a few million hot peasant chicks in fuck-me pumps and 18 button gloves. Will, try this one. If Igor hasn't fucked up my calculations, I do believe everyone looks better in black."
"Um, Cordelia, seriously. I'm not going out for Miss America or anything... Not that this bathing suit would get by the primetime censors..."
"Are you suggesting that I am lesser audience than a bunch of exploitive out-of-work actors and pathetic old pervs?"
"Of course not, Cordy. You're my sun, moon, stars and deadly meteor heading straight for earth."
"And don't you forget it. Now strip."
"Um, where's your bathroom?"
"Oh, just try it on here. The ties are a little whacked -- I'll have to help you with them."
Willow took a better look at the bathing suit in her hands, hiding her face. A burn overwhelmed her cheeks as the banter dissipated and she slithered her arms out of her own straps. With the seam of her suit held just at her nipples and breasts caught in the cross her arms, she snuck a peak at Cordelia, whose glance jerked down to the excellent expression of the subtle dichotomy of grey and black in the carpet.
She pushed the fabric down her body and let her hair cover her blush and fast breathe as she crouched over to step out of her own suit and into the briefs of the other. Brief they were, high as the tide on some beach, somewhere. Cordelia covertly watched the anti-strip tease with bated breathe. She nearly fainted when Willow ran her hands along the insides of the bikini to smooth down the fabric. She bit her tongue in the flash of ire toward the fabric, taut and pinching at her shoulders and thighs, daring to touch and grasp that flesh when Cordelia could only stare. In her house even. The gall.
Willow stood up straight, breasts bare. In this moment of shamelessness she felt cartoonishly pornographic. So much fear had been empirically invested in this bareness of body and desire, and she felt so scripted trying to urge it all on...
"Cordy? I'm really confused about this top thingie. Wanna bestow a little more altruism on me?"
Willow met Cordelia's eyes, dilated and unwavering, above licked lips and audible breathe and sharp fingernails digging into the bedspread.
In a flash Cordelia was behind her, picking up the straps. Her nails brushed Willow's skin, dancing around the knots, loose but complex for all the time it was taking. She tucked the front seam of the bikini top under Willow's breasts and trailed her hands back. For those four seconds the planet earth orbited on circle Cordelia drew down Willow's ribcage, except Willow who raised her body to the touch with a small gasp.
"You have a really pretty back," Cordelia said quietly, trailing an ethereal whisper and a fingernail down Willow's backbone.
Willow could feel lipsticked lips at her ear, the speech echoing the touch in another language she didn't quite know. She just stood there, feeling a shiver of fey abandon trying to ram past her inhibitions.
"Mmmm... I think the extra towels are in the bathroom..." Cordelia muttered and wandered off. She slunk out of her linen dress as she walked, leaving in her sex-o-matic venus freak wake a crumple of cloth on the floor and black string bikini, accessorized by a pair of legs and arms.
Willow blinked and padded after her, stopping in the doorway like Cordelia, more naked than not, was as dangerous as an earthquake. She took a deep breathe and leaned against the doorframe as she watched Cordelia open the drawers of her vanity, look under the soap dish, and rifle through her medicine cabinet insisting that "they're in here somewhere".
Watching Cordelia float around, Willow was touched a twinge of disappointment. It was -- who was she to talk, but, still... Perfection was predictable. Boring as a magazine. Cordelia walked up to her stare and bent over -- bent over when she could have stooped, oh god -- to look under the sink, where the towels were indeed hiding. Willow eyes were lazy down Cordelia's back and along the seams of stockings she wasn't wearing. Willow bit down a little victory cry; there is was, in the small of her back. A little scab, maybe three inches long, maybe from backing into the rusty pipes in the utility closet. Would Cordelia yank her wrist back if she were to run her fingertips along the scar? Grab her arm and pull and glare? Would her own body stumble forward, off balance and regaining herself with her hands to Cordelia's chest? Would there be a tense, odious silence between them? Would it be anything but high passion and fingernails digging into her wrist? Drawing blood? Would they tremble eye to eye, lips to lips?
Willow rolled her eyes at herself as Cordelia glided off stage, right. Who was she, thinking she could orchestrate something that would just get right to the point, getting what she wanted here and now? If Cordelia deigned to indulge her, it would just be out of sympathy... Sympathy for all the reasons why Cordelia would never mean it when she touched her -- if Willow were lucky enough not to be the butt of some Candid Camera Surprise! sort of horrible joke.
Cordelia stood in the doorway, bemused, looking back at Willow still sitting on her bed, absorbed in the practiced, perfected reverie of self pity slash paranoia that always started up when things just began to look hopeful and dirty. Too good to be true for her, go to pages 3-7 for blah blah blah self-worth and self-esteem issues that just didn't seem to matter as much since Cordelia'd already touched her breasts...
"Um, Willow, come on? Do you want something to drink? You look shook. And it just totally defeats the point of a girls' night if you don't feel glamorous -- I mean once I've got your clothes right, we've got to be sensible here," Cordelia stopped to take a breathe and fold her arms over her chest, "So if I have to chase you down, tie you down, and pour you a glass of water to make you feel better, I'm going to. Okay?"
Willow nodded weakly, dazed at the image and the phantom hope of flesh and pressure and being held down tight, even tied -- or gods, the whole shebang, attacked and caught by her -- with a bit of disbelief at the glass held to her lips, tilted slightly. Though then all Willow knew was Cordelia's own mouth was opening wetly in time. For lack of anything better to do her hands rose to the glass, gracing over Cordelia's own fingers as she took the glass, a hypersensitive pang of remorse no longer to be fed.
Willow got up and clumsily made her way down the hall after Cordelia into a tiled room rimmed with tall, leafy plants. Sheets of starlight glazed a swimming pool and hot tub, streaming through a windowed roof and outer wall.
Cordelia walked over to the hot tub, tossing the towels by the window, and sunk in the water quickly, closing her eyes, as if that made her any less aware of what she was doing. She arched her back in the hot froth before she popped back up, jerking herself from the scalding water.
"Fuck, I'd forgotten how hot this got..."
The knot of her left hip was undone, one string back and one draped across her stomach. The fabric was flipped somewhat here as somewhat there; Cordelia silently thanked whatever good fairy who had blessed her birth that she could be mid-squirm out of a bikini and not look sloppy.
Cordelia shivered as her fingers stroked the reflection of her breast in the water.
Willow sucked in her breathe as she made her way over, "Do you want help tying that back together?" Her eyes trailed up Cordelia's ludicrously slick chest and neck to a bashful grin, that was ever so slightly narrowing down that eagerness. It was too fast and beautiful to think, to reason, to do anthing but get closer and to, dare she dream, touch.
Cordelia's face went fashion-plate blank, her voice gravelly, "If you really think that would be best." She laboriously undid the knot on her right hip and straddled the ledge of the hot tub with the strings in her fist, resting low and indecent on her thigh. Complete, straight eye contact.
Willow's lips parted and her eyes dilated. Oh, god -- oh, god, what have you put in the water?
C'mon, Willow, if it's really a trick you can always bat your lashes and hold her head under and run really far away...
Cordelia watch Willow, frozen, and with a light feminine laugh she leaned back. Willow blinked and stepped forward to Cordelia. She cocked her head to the side and dragged her gaze from Cordelia's eyes, over her breasts, waist, legs and through her toes. She walked back and fell to her knees. Willow waited, just staring up her legs until Cordelia propped herself up on her elbows.
Willow wondered why no one was watering the philodendron plant before jerking her eyes down and dropping a steely kiss a few inches above Cordelia's ankle bone. She sneaked a look up at Cordelia, her arms taut gripping the sides of the hot tub in dim surprise. Too entranced to remember to fear the beguiling machinations of a professional popularity cliche, Willow bit the bullet and her tongue and made grim, decisive eye contact with the brittlely poised Cordelia. Willow rose again and hands insouciantly drifting up the inside of her legs, glided towards Cordelia's feather-whimper. Her fingers slipped inside the slip of cloth; Cordelia weathered a moan and fell back on the marbled ledge. One hand fell in the water as Willow clasped the other, bending down and meeting Cordelia's lips softly. Like an ackward fully clothed traditional first date Cordelia responded with a light purse and matching shoes. The kiss fluttered to an end, and Cordelia dropped Willow's hand, running both hands through her hair. She rose and found herself in another kiss, more aggressive.
She pulled Willow in tight, realizing all this desideration was falling into constellations, and in the stars their futures for tonight were as one. Their lips met and slipped together, gaining speed and ferocity, until they broke for breathe. Cordelia slid her hands up Willow's scalp, grasping her hair and leaning down to kiss her neck.
Entwined, responding to kiss with kiss, they wafted over to the window, letting the cool air chill their wet skin. They felt through goosebumps with goosedown caresses. Cordelia curled her toes around Willow's and her knees buckled. Cordelia tumbled down along with her on the towels. Willow landed among Cordelia's thighs, and with exhilaration and a scrape of her teeth, Cordelia's body bucked back. She landed in the flower bed, under some nymphet orange tree.
Willow rolled on top of her and perched, typed out the Ode To some such mad, mad Joy through Cordelia's coarse dusting of pubic hair. The chorus swelled, and Cordelia moaned. Willow chuckled and as she went down, running her nails up Cordelia's front with vigor and serpentine purpose, engraving those heady secrets she found a little lower, drawing out gasps and growls. Willow caught a flicker of Cordelia's visage on the ground. She rose and took in the hazy vision of Cordelia embedded in speckled and dark, rich dirt. For all the madness and, too nonsense and victory of this curling and coquette fantasy coming true and coming today, all Willow saw was the little toy sky and her white hot writhing angel.
Cordelia was six feet deep in sensation. She could feel the granules of peat moss soft on her in her hair. She could feel Willow's hair, still dry and ticking her stomach with the static lightness. Her bedroom eyes rolled back. Willow's tongue was delicate and everywhere, down long strokes of her labia and with elfin suckling of her clitoris. Cordelia twisted under the centrifugal, ascending, hypnotic sensation, too ruddy and greedy to just be that glossy, pastel word 'pleasure'. It was gravity, and she'd backed herself on to the poolside concrete. She didn't have the breathe to spare for a shriek but she teared as her back was scraped raw and stung in the chlorine. The pain eked out ecstasy further, steering all sense back to touch.
Cordelia felt her body fall into the swan dive swan song orgasm. Her scream was submerged under the waves of chemical burn as her body slipped away down the swimming pool ledge in the water with a splash. She languished momentarily before breaking the surface with hard coughs. Exhausted, she just sank back down into the shallow sky blue California indoor swimming pool water. Finally she rose again, slicking back her hair as she felt the focused viciousness which she did best return to her head.
Willow watched enthralled as Cordelia dissolved into orgasm and struggled to collect herself. She felt the hungry flipside of the familiar petrified buzz that only got louder when she met eyes with Cordelia, just as predatory as herself and slowly swimming towards her. She shivered and laid back. She closed her eyes, focusing on the foreboding swish of Cordelia getting closer, coming in for the kill or whatever this was going to be.