The Sea is Dark, and all its gods are dead
For the third time since they started making out, Spencer feels Ashley's fingernails trailing over her bare stomach. Over and over again, they skim across Spencer's belly, gliding closer to the waistband of her jeans with each pass, and Spencer lets them, because she likes the feel of their warmth on her flesh, likes the sensations they send flitting all through her body. But when Ashley's fingers dip beneath the top her jeans, Spencer freezes and her hands automatically rise to stop their advance. "Sorry," she says, word tripping lamely from her mouth as Ashley sighs and rolls onto her back.
"It's all right," she says, an almost imperceptible sarcasm tingeing her voice. But Spencer catches it, can't blame her for being at least a little miffed. They've been in this situation before, and it always ends the same way.
Propping herself on her elbows, Spencer closes her eyes and lets her head fall back. She breathes out heavily and says, "I want to. I do, but I'm nervous about it. This isn't fumbling around in a dark barn loft with my ninth grade boyfriend, not knowing what to do, just letting things happen because that's what's expected. This is you and me, us, on your bed, and I want it to be right."
Ashley moves closer, doesn't sound annoyed at all when she replies, "I know, Spence. Just got carried away, that's all."
And Spencer understands that, has wanted to be carried away since the first time she ended up on Ashley's bed. She knows part of her discomfort comes from her upbringing, that her conscience is marred by her mother's whispering about the wrongness of premarital sex. Spencer doesn't even want to think what Paula Carlin would say about her baby girl having (gasp) homosexual sex. But the fact of it is, Spencer's biggest fear isn't that she'll burn in the inner circles of Hell. It's that she'll be no good at all, that Ashley will be disappointed with her Ohio hayseed and drop back into her life of partying with experienced girls. This, of course, Spencer keeps to herself, hoping that Ashley will remain patient until she works up the nerve to go further. "I'm a tease, aren't I?" she asks, slightly dejected.
"Yeah, you are." Ashley responds with a laugh, but she doesn't sound exactly like she's joking. "Actually, I was wondering if you'd do something for me. I know... I know you're not sure about letting me touch you yet, but how about something else?"
"Like what?"
"Touch yourself for me?"
Spencer feels her cheeks burn; she must be blushing bright red. "Excuse me?" she asks, words choked out, because even though she's quite sure she understands, she needs more than a minute to process what Ashley's asking her to do.
A small smile plays across Ashley's lips. She looks like she's enjoying herself. "You do masturbate, don't you?"
"Um, yeah. I guess. Sometimes." And now Spencer's consigned herself to staring down at her fingers as they clutch and release the bedspread, because if she looks over at Ashley, she knows she'll lose it. How that'll manifest itself, she doesn't know, isn't sure she wants to find out.
Shifting closer, Ashley covers Spencer's hand with hers, tucks her head in the crook of her neck and whispers, "Like when?"
"I...I don't know," Spencer stutters, feeling her fingers twitch underneath Ashley's firm grip.
"I'll tell you when I do it," Ashley murmurs, prying Spencer's hand off the bedspread, smoothing out her clenched fingers and placing them over Spencer's belly, palm flat against the fabric of her jeans. "After we've kissed for, like, hours, and I don't get to have my way with you?"
"I told you, I'm sorry about--"
"Shh. Hold on," Ashley interrupts, curling her fingers around Spencer's wrist. "After I drive you home, I come back here and I do it. I unbutton whatever I'm wearing..." She places Spencer's hand over the top button of her jeans. "Go ahead."
Spencer swallows hard. "Are you serious?"
"Don't you want to?" Ashley asks, placing a wet kiss behind Spencer's ear. "Aren't you horny, Spencer?"
Spencer nods. Of course she is.
"Then do it," Ashley says, pressing at Spencer's hand insistently.
And Spencer does, because she's okay with having Ashley boss her around a little, especially when that throaty voice of hers brings a deeper ache between her legs.
Stroking the inside of Spencer's wrist with two fingers, Ashley adds, voice low as she moves her body as close to Spencer's as she can without actually being on top of it, "I slide my hand down underneath my clothes, under my panties." She bites down on Spencer's shoulder, not too hard but hard enough for Spencer to gasp at the pain it causes. "Do that, Spence."
Spencer does, feeling a little embarrassed and awkward knowing that Ashley's watching her put her hand down her pants. But she does it, lets her hand rest inside her underwear, stops just short of actually touching where she really wants to touch.
Next to her, she can feel Ashley shifting, undoing the clasp on her skirt. "Is this okay?" she hears her ask, and they're still pressed against each other, so close that Spencer can feel the low vibration of Ashley's voice, feel as her breasts press against Spencer's back, move each time she breaths: in and out.
"Y-yeah," Spencer replies, trying to contain her stuttering. "Fine."
"And all I have to do," Ashley says, once the shifting has stopped, and Spencer knows that they're both touching themselves in this same place, that Ashley's *watching* her, "is think about you, about what we've been doing. Your lips, and your smile, and the way your breasts feel against my hands." Spencer closes her eyes and sighs, feels as the bed sways a little as Ashley's hand moves beneath her skirt. "Does this bother you?"
"No," Spencer replies, voice tight and small.
"Are you sure?" Ashley asks again, pressing a small kiss to her shoulder, probably, Spencer thinks, on the same spot she'd bitten earlier.
"It's just...new."
"I thought you'd done it before. C'mon, Spencer, don't tell me you've never..."
"Not with an audience!"
"Just me," Ashley replies. "And I don't have to watch if you don't want me to. I'll close my eyes."
"You will?"
"Yeah. We'll both close our eyes. Okay?"
This sounds to Spencer like they may be cheating, like they may be getting around some rule that says they really should be watching each other. Because she really would like to see Ashley. It's being seen that's embarrassing...and thrilling, and erotic. But mostly embarrassing, because deep down she's still just a kid from Ohio, and this is all too intense and urbane for her. Eyes closed, though--that she can handle.
She closes her eyes and feels the bed sway again, feels like she's gone adrift on some lonely raft, floating away into a dark ocean, enveloped by a cold breeze (Ashley's left her window open), and her hot hand is pressed between her legs, unmoving and unmovable. Next to her, she feels Ashley shift; her arm rubs against Spencer's as it slides up and down, and Spencer thinks about the hand that's attached to that arm, and about the fingers on that hand, sliding and teasing... A little groan works its way up her throat as she imagines it, almost sees it through her mind's eye. The sound of skin rubbing against fabric reaches her ears, and she strains to hear the soft exhalations coming from Ashley, growing in intensity, working themselves into almost-moans.
A breathy sigh and in it Spencer hears her name.
And Spencer sees:
(they're both unmoored in this tiny raft, surrounded by a vast ocean, a vast dark ocean and they only have each other, lying flat against their raft, only with each other and the sounds of their breathing and the feel of their hands and they're blind except for the light of a few stars and that's no light at all, not in their ocean, in their dark, foreboding ocean surrounded by nothing but water and beneath that whatever lurks that's dangerous and wet and clawing and tempting, but the sea doesn't care about two girls, not when they're on their raft, lost in the vastness of nothingness and all they have is the feel of skin, one arm moving against another, slowly and deliberately, the sound of girls touching and swaying, letting themselves be swallowed up by their vast ocean, letting their raft capsize because in the end it doesn't matter if the sea takes them, if the sea pulls them under and traps them, and she's floating, caught by dozens of hands, shaky tentacles that grasp and pull and tease, and the sea that doesn't let her breathe, takes all her air and leaves her gasping, hoping for release, and next to her, drifting by and floating, a girl who's beautiful and floating and waiting, out of reach except for her arm, and her fingers which wrap around and pull and push)
Feels Ashley's arm, working frantically, hears her breath, loud, labored. Hears her name again, clearly, loudly: "Spencer."
(stormy sea, thrashing, pulling waves that threaten to tear them apart, but they hold on, fingers grasping tightly as they're tossed about the vastness of their ocean, still dark and mysterious and lonely, but not lonely because they're still holding on to each other, still feeling skin against skin even as the tempest flings them about and they feel themselves swoon, feel faint and flush in each others' arms)
Doesn't know when Ashley started holding her, when she wrapped her arms around Spencer's shoulders and started kissing her furiously, working inside her mouth with expert tongue, when lips started pressing and sliding against each other. Isn't even sure she remembers when her hand started pressing roughly, when her very own fingers had begun moving inside of her, when she was afraid to breathe because she thought she'd cry out in her delirium. Her eyes open but they can't focus, can only stare at the blurred mass of Ashley's ceiling, of Ashley's hair dipping in and out of view as they kiss and kiss and kiss.
(when she drowns, it's the best death of any)
Spencer comes with Ashley's tongue inside her mouth, her hands gripping at her breasts. And she whimpers ohmygod as she feels her heart beat wildly, feels the painful intake of air into her lungs, and thinks (oh, blasphemy) that's what will get me into Hell.
"Spencer?"
"Yeah."
"You okay?"
"Uh huh."
"Sure?"
"Yes." And Spencer smiles just to be sure Ashley understands, tilts her head and kisses her again. Long and soft and peaceful.