One For Sorrow, Two For Joy, Three For A Girl (And Boy)
As Tara's back thudded against the wall of the bathroom stall, she ran her mind through everything that had happened today searching for an explanation to her current situation.
She'd gotten up, brushed her teeth, and had a very healthy breakfast of oatmeal and a banana. She'd gone to her Art History class, and had lunch with Dawn. She'd then spent two hours grappling with her English Literature notes before going to meet Anya at the Espresso Pump for a latte. She'd gone to the bathroom and had just finished washing her hands when Anya had barrelled in, shoved her back into the stall and started kissing her thoroughly.
No, nothing in her day could possibly explain what was going on now. She was about to start running through every interaction she'd ever had with Anya in search of an explanation, however it occurred to her that perhaps the fact that Anya was sucking with great enthusiasm on her bottom lip was a more pressing problem.
"Er," Tara squirmed away from Anya's eager mouth, "What's going on?" Anya was no longer kissing her, but her face was still very close to Tara's, her arms braced against the wall on either side of Tara's shoulders.
"I was kissing you." It took Anya what felt like a full minute to realise that was not an acceptable answer. "You left Willow and you've been sad, you're my friend and I want to make you feel better."
"L-look Anya, it's not that I don't appreciate the t-though," Tara stammered as she searched for a way to put more distance between her and Anya in the confined space. "But, um, we can't, y-you're engaged and it's not how things are done."
"I'm sorry. It's just that I'm new at having human friends, I wanted you to stop being sad." Anya backed away from Tara, "I'm not good at a lot of mortal things, but I am good at sex. Sex with Xander and I would have made you happy. Plus it'd be very erotic"
'Xander and I!?' Normally, Tara would have been disgusted with any woman who invited (although Anya didn't invite so much as instruct) her to join a threesome with her and her boyfriend, but this was Anya. And it seemed a perfectly ordinary thing for Anya to do. So, while Tara was still a little bit disgusted she was mostly flattered that Anya cared enough about her to want to do something, anything, to help her.
"Oh sweetie, that's really nice of you, but I'm going to be alright. Will and I might work things out and even if we don't, the fact that you want to be my friend means a lot to me." Tara looped her arms around Anya's shoulders and pulled her in for a hug, She released a breath she didn't realise she'd been holding when Anya didn't misconstrue the friendly gesture, wrapping her arms around Tara's back and settling her head on Tara's shoulder.
"It's a shame though. You, me and Xander together would have been hot." Anya said in a tone that other people used when noting that it was a shame about the weather or the economy.
"I don't think I'm really the three in a bed type."
"I bet you're a dynamo in bed. In my experience, it's always the quiet ones who are. And this hug has given me the opportunity to notice that you have an excellent body under all that sackcloth you wear."
It hit Tara that she was standing in a locked stall in the ladies bathroom of the Espresso Pump, hugging a woman who two minutes ago had propositioned her and was still apparently admiring her body. "Anya, Maybe we should leave now?" Tara detangled herself gently from the other woman.
"Okay. But we're still friends right?" Anya's insecurity was adorable. The other thing that hit Tara was that this probably wasn't the best time to be finding Anya in any way adorable.
Tara balanced a vegetarian pizza on one arm as she knocked on the front door of Anya's apartment. Ever since what Tara had taken to calling 'The Incident in the Bathroom,' she and Anya had been making an effort to do things together, having coffee, seeing movies and watching videos.
When Tara had first met Anya, she had found her blunt and rude. She was surprised at what a good friend the former demon made. She could be callous and strange, but she could also be very sweet, funny and loyal. Tonight was pizza and video night, Tara had gotten the pizza and it was Anya's turn to choose the video. Tara hoped that it wasn't porn this time; she didn't think she'd stopped blushing after the last time.
"Hi," Xander opened the door looking surprised to see her. Tara, for her part, wasn't any less surprised to see Xander. He'd never been there any of the other times she'd come round to see Anya.
"Oh, hello. Hi. I was supposed to be meeting Anya, I think, maybe I've got the wrong day."
"Pizza and movies?" Xander asked, opening the door to admit her.
"Well, if Anya doesn't show up with the movies then its just pizza..."
"She said she'd be back in five minutes," Xander started awkwardly, despite their mutual group of friends, the amount of time they'd had spent alone together could be measured in minutes. "What sort of pizza did you get?"
"Vegetarian, want a slice?" Tara opened the lid and offered Xander the box.
"A pizza without pepperoni? That's gotta be demonic!" he cried, taking a slice anyway.
"It's my new thing since, you know, I'm trying to eat more vegetables."
"On pizza?"
"Yeah. I need to work on it a little." 'Well,' Tara thought, 'that exhausts the subject of the pizza.'
"Do you want a beer while we wait for Anya?" Xander asked, obviously also feeling a change of subject was in order.
"No thanks, but, erm, feel free."
Xander deposited the pizza box on the coffee table and walked towards the kitchen, "Are you scared of what film Ahn will pick? Has she made you watch porn yet?"
Tara was torn between smirking and blushing, "Only once, but-" she stopped mid-sentence when she noticed Xander had turned in the doorway and was staring at her aghast.
"That's why she didn't tell me you were coming over, the sneaky minx. Okay, Tara, I don't really know you that well, and even if I did I still wouldn't imagine I'd ever have to ask you this question."
"O-okay."
"Did Anya ask you, and if she didn't, let us never mention this again, did Anya ask you to go to bed with us?"
"Oh God, Xander," Tara backed away towards the front door, Anya had told Xander, Anya had probably told Xander about the inappropriate bathroom hug, Xander probably thought she was here tonight to- "I said n-no, I mean I wouldn't."
"Me too. I thought it was just Anya being Anya. I never thought she'd really ask you. Look I understand if you want to leave, but maybe if we say no together, God knows saying it separately doesn't seem to have worked."
"Alright. Xander, maybe I'll have that beer now?"
Anya swung open her apartment door and entered, curiously devoid of any videos, to see Xander and Tara sitting as far apart on the couch as the laws of physics would allow. They were both clutching bottles of beer and two more empty bottles were sitting on the coffee table along with an empty pizza box.
"Good. You two have been drinking together, this will make this much easier. You haven't been drinking too much have you?" The question was aimed at Xander, "I want you functional."
"No, I haven't been...Ahn, that's not what we're talking about. We're not doing this...thing...we both told you that!"
"Tara told me she was flattered," Tara was about to interrupt to say that she'd been flattered by the concern not the proposition when Anya continued, "and you told me that you thought Tara was hot, but that it wasn't appropriate."
"Okay, Anya," Xander was beginning to sound angry, "women I find attractive is one of those things we don't talk about in public. Especially not in front of those women."
Maybe it was the fact that Tara didn't drink much, or maybe there had been some bad mushrooms on that pizza but she couldn't stop smiling because Xander thought she was hot.
Anya was giving them a look that was usually reserved for people who couldn't add two plus two, or people who thought there really was a Vampire Lestat.
"Look you two are being incredibly stupid. I want to do this because I find you both very attractive and I think this will be more fun than has been had on the Hellmouth in a long time. Xander, I love you, but you have some very strange ideas about relationships, I know you want to see me have sex with Tara and seeing as I want to have sex with her I think that's what we should do, and probably before vows are taken."
Anya then turned her attention to Tara, standing over her with hands on hips. "And you, you split from Willow and you've been pretending you're alright but you're not. I was a vengeance demon for a long time and the resentment over this break-up is going to fester inside you until you call one of my former colleagues in to do horrible things to her, and I really don't want any of them in town especially when I'm planning my wedding. You've got two people here who think you're gorgeous and want to make you feel good and if that doesn't kill the resentment then nothing will."
Anya bent down, grabbed Tara's wrists, planted her leg between Tara knees and kissed her exhaustively. She squirmed forward using her knee to leverage Tara's denim clad thighs apart so that she was half kneeling on the couch, her tongue traced figures of eight inside Tara's mouth.
"Plus," Anya said pulling away; "I really want to have sex with a girl again. What do you say?"
If Tara hadn't been panicking so blindly she might have wondered what it was in her personality that predisposed her to having panic attacks in bathrooms. Anya was a good, no, Anya was a great kisser, but that didn't explain why she'd just agreed to sleep with her and her fiancé. And her fiancé, Oh God, Xander was going to be there. Xander was a guy, a nice guy, a great guy, but a guy. Would she be expected to-? No, Anya and Xander were her friends; they wouldn't push her into anything. Plus she was standing in Anya and Xander's master bathroom in her underwear; it was probably a little late to back out now.
Tara looked at her reflection; her face was clean, if currently wearing an expression of utter terror. Her underwear consisted of a white cotton bra and a pair of white cotton briefs; she toyed with the idea of taking them off. Anya had sent her into the bathroom to strip, but she definitely wasn't ready to be that vulnerable yet.
Tara took a deep breath, counted slowly backwards from ten and opened the bathroom door. Anya wasn't there; Xander was standing nervously in the middle of his bedroom dressed only in a pair of black boxer shorts. Tara was incredibly relieved that she hadn't taken her underwear off.
"Wow, Tara, you look great, I mean really, really great. I always thought you looked nice, but naked, well near naked, you look fantastic."
"I think so too, nice breasts." Anya commented, standing in the doorway to the bedroom completely naked. She frowned at them both, "I thought I told you both to strip? Xander take off your shorts and lie down."
To Tara's astonishment Xander obeyed, shucking off his black boxers and kicking them away. Tara's eyes were drawn to Xander's erection, red and thick against his belly. It bobbed slightly as he followed Anya's instructions, walked over to the King-sized bed and lay down.
"He's got nice muscles in his arms," Tara realised that Anya had snuck up next to her while she was staring at Xander. The ex-demon walked her fingers up Tara's spine across her shoulder and down the slope of her breast, "But you have a nicer chest."
Anya was nice to look at naked Tara admitted to herself, tanned and taut with small breasts and a patch of hair between her legs that was darker than any Tara had ever seen on her head. Tara supposed Xander was nice to look at too, with a smooth curve along his spine and gently undulating muscles. But Anya was attractive in a more familiar way, without any obvious appendages that seemed out of place.
All of the muscles in Tara's body tensed, she was appreciating what Anya and Xander looked like naked. This was- she didn't know what this was!
Anya seemed to feel Tara's tension, her fingers went from tracing circles around Tara's right nipple to massaging her shoulders, trailing back from her shoulders to the back of her neck working her fingers between the vertebrae. Tara's head dropped forward, that felt nice. Suddenly the pleasant sensation was gone as Anya moved away. Tara looked up to find Anya standing right in front of her. She could feel heat pool in every place where her body met Anya's, at her thighs, belly and breasts.
Anya leaned forward and up, her tongue tracing the arch of Tara's top lip, her arms settled on Tara's spine, fingers searching for the catch of her bra. Tara felt the cool air hit her breasts as her bra fell away and Anya swept the straps down her arms, the garment dropping to the floor. 'That was fast,' Tara mused, 'especially for someone who's engaged to a man.' Anya deepened the kiss, her tongue making an effort to count every one of Tara's teeth. As Anya's tongue pushed into Tara's mouth her hands pushed against Tara's stomach and breast forcing Tara back across the room until the back of her legs hit the mattress and she half-fell onto the bed.
The slight dip in the mattress next to her reminded Tara of Xander's presence, something she had all but for gotten about during Anya's assault on her nerves. Anya was braced over Tara, kissing down her throat and moving across her collarbone with sweeping strokes of her tongue while her nimble fingers drew Tara's panties down her legs. Tara turned her head to face Xander; he was lying on his side facing them. His eyes weren't brown as Tara had always assumed but hazel, with flecks of green around the irises, he had pretty eyes. There were beads of sweat on his forehead and his dark hair had flopped forward into his face.
Xander's pretty eyes drifted closed as he moved in for a kiss. Tara had never kissed a boy (man) and she had always though it would be different from kissing a girl, she had thought it would be rougher, more forceful but it wasn't. Xander's lips brushed hers gently, timidly, as if he wasn't sure he was allowed to be kissing her. Tara tried to shift slightly under Anya's weight so that she was in a better position for kissing Xander. She tilted her head to the left, pushing up against Xander and opening her mouth slightly sliding her tongue against Xander's lips. Xander was a good kisser, gentle and thoughtful. Tara was surprised by the scratchiness of his stubble, which she could feel rubbing at her mouth and chin. Her traitorous mind couldn't help wondering what that mouth would feel like doing what Anya was doing right now. Anya had nipped and licked her way down Tara's body and was currently crouching between Tara's thighs flicking her tongue in small kittenish motions over Tara's clit, causing Tara to whimper into Xander's mouth.
When she had been standing in her underwear in the bathroom Tara had been convinced that she'd panic, that she wouldn't enjoy this, that she'd flinch every time Xander came near her, that she'd see Willow in Anya but it wasn't like that. Xander's mouth was warm and pleasant. She arched up into both the large calloused hand and the smaller smooth one that caressed her breasts. She couldn't tell how many fingers it was Anya was curling inside her, three? Four? She'd tried to count but at some point she'd given up as her brain had been overtaken by the pleasurable sensations. Her hips bucked up against Anya and her climactic cry disappeared into Xander's throat.
Tara shivered as the post-orgasmic warmth disappeared from her body. She attempted to scoot backwards suddenly mortified that Anya was lying between her open legs. The sheets moved with her as she shot backwards and closed her thighs. The blood, which had recently been deployed to other body parts rushed to her face and neck and she blushed bright red. She hung her head and her sweat dampened hair bunched around her face. Tara risked a sideways look at Xander, but he was no longer looking at her, he was looking past her to Anya.
Tara drew her knees up to her chin, allowing Anya to crawl past her to her fiancé. Xander and Anya kissed the way couples that had a lot of practice did, no confusion about who tilted their head to the left and to the right, no hesitation about opening their mouths, no nervous skirmishes between their tongues. They kissed the way people who were going to be together for the rest of their lives kiss. Tara felt a pang of loss in her throat as she recognized that she no longer had that.
Anya pulled away from Xander and moved towards the edge of the bed, Tara wondered if she was getting up. But Anya just leaned into the nightstand and came up with a square of foil, Xander grinned knowingly as Anya tore open the foil wrapping of the condom. Tara felt warmth pooling in her lower abdomen as she watched Xander's lips part and his eyelids drift closed as Anya rolled the condom down his shaft.
Xander pulled Anya in for another kiss, this one completely different from the way he'd kissed Tara herself, this kiss was open mouthed and passionate. He pulled Anya close and rolled so she was lying under him, legs wrapped around his waist, heels digging into his ass. There was a distance of mussed sheets between the couple and where Tara was sitting, legs pulled up against her chest.
Xander's hips nudged forwards and Anya moaned. Tara turned away, feeling awkward at witnessing this moment of intimacy. She began looking over the edge of the bed, searching for her abandoned panties. She'd just spotted them lying hooked around the nightstand leg when she heard Xander cry out, "Oh, fuck, Ahn, I'm sorry."
Tara surrendered her underwear retrieval mission and turned to see what could have made Xander sound so distressed. Xander was lying atop Anya, her legs were still wrapped around him, but they were no longer moving together. Xander was very still and covered in a light sheen of sweat, his forehead was pressed against Anya's and he was still apologising. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry." Then to her surprise he turned his eyes to Tara. "I'm usually, you know, better..." Tara realised what had happened when Xander pulled back from Anya and disposed of the used condom in the trashcan next to the bed.
Sitting between Tara and Anya, Xander seemed confused as to whom he should be apologising too. He settled on Tara, "Really, I'm usually better, it usually takes, uh, longer," he turned to Anya, "tell her!"
"It's true, he's usually a Viking," she patted Xander on his shoulder in what was obviously supposed to be a comforting gesture. She then leaned forward and kissed Xander gently on the cheek, "It's really alright honey. I was expecting it." She turned to address Tara, "he's just watched two extremely attractive girls have excellent sex. You know how it is..."
"Not really, I've only ever slept with girls so I've not really encountered P-p-premature ejaculation."
Anya grinned from ear to ear and whacked Xander lightly on the shoulder; "this is why I wanted her here."
"To make jokes about prem- the thing no man can mention or he'll be cursed with it!?"
"Yes. And," Anya got to her knees and leaned past Xander, she grasped Tara by the forearms and pulled her to her knees. The two women were leaning in a pyramid over Xander with their foreheads pressed together, "also to enjoy the benefits of two lovers." Anya pitched backwards, pulling Tara with her.
Tara wound up sprawled half over Xander (their legs tangled together) and half on top of Anya kissing the other woman while her hands attempted to work between their compressed bodies.
Anya was certainly not a coy lover. They couldn't have been kissing for more than thirty seconds before Anya's palms were on Tara's shoulders forcing her downwards. Tara's instincts were usually to take sex slowly, with lots of foreplay, but Anya's hands forcing her inexorably down did not allow for that. Anya cast her legs over Tara's shoulders.
Tara moved her hands until they were caressing the inside of Anya's thighs. Anya mewled and bucked her hips up towards Tara's mouth. Tara leaned in for an exploratory lick, she pulled back and grinned coyly at the amount of wetness she found. That same traitorous part of her mind suggested that Xander must be very good if he could get Anya this turned on when he wasn't performing at his best. Anya's fingers tangling painfully in her hair, demanding that she return to the task at hand silenced this perilous line of thought.
Tara pressed her tongue into Anya's wetness, deliberately avoiding her clit at first. Anya's fingers tugging almost painfully at her hair changed this. She swept her tongue upwards in a long stroke, almost choking with surprise at the tang of metal in her mouth. She pulled back, looking up at Anya's face, seeking an explanation for the thin circle of metal she'd encountered.
"Clit hood piercing, when Xander and I first started having sex he needed a bit of help."
"It's true," Xander commented, Tara couldn't see him through the tangle of limbs, but the warmth of his breath against her shoulder told Tara that he was nearby, watching the proceedings with great interest. "It was great, sort of like one of these maps, y'know 'You Are Here'."
Tara chuckled. Her mirth ended when Anya jabbed her heel sharply into the back of Tara's head. Subtle.
Tara lapped slowly over Anya's clit. She briefly worried about catching the silver ring with her tongue and hurting Anya, her worries were short lived as Anya's hands in her hair urged her on and Anya's moans reached her ears. She flicked her tongue with increasing speed and moved her left hand around from Anya's hip, dragging her fingernails over skin, to Anya's inner thigh. It was the force of a habit. Willow had never been able to come without some sort of penetration. But before Tara could work out the logistics of getting her hand to Anya's sex without interrupting the rhythm of her tongue Anya had bucked her hips wildly and cried out a name that Tara was fairly sure belonged to the patron saint of demons.
"I'm done. Thank you." Anya said, tapping Tara on the shoulder.
"Uh, ok," Tara said, sliding backwards, clearly Anya ended sex just as frankly as she began it. She had been lying sprawled half over Xander for the last while and she froze as she attempted to move back across him and her hip connected with something hard.
Her head snapped up, Xander's eyes were fixed on where his erection met her hip.
"You don't have to-"
"I'm sorry, I didn't see-"
Anya snorted derisively, "You've been naked in the same bed all night, you can stop acting like you've just been in a minor car accident together."
Anya took Tara's hand in her own, lacing their fingers together. She then guided both their hands to wrap round Xander erection. He moaned, but didn't close his eyes this time; his eyes were focused on the two women's joined hands. Anya guided Tara's stroke. The texture was like nothing Tara had ever touched before, hard and soft at the same time. Surprisingly it wasn't unpleasant to touch, although Tara did find it slightly disconcerting the way it twitched seemingly independent of Xander.
Tara was mesmerised by the bead of liquid that emerged from the head. She was even more enchanted when Anya dipped her head and her pink tongue darted out to lick up the liquid. Tara moved her hand away, her pinkie finger catching the corner of Anya's warm mouth. Unlike earlier, she didn't want to bolt at the sight of Xander and Anya in an intimate moment.
Xander's hands fisted tightly in the mussed sheets and his upper body collapsed back onto the mattress. Tara dragged her eyes away from the sight of Anya's head dipping alluring up and down to lie down beside Xander. His breathing was uneven and there was a bead of sweat making it's way down his forehead, Tara was overcome with the impulse to lick it away, she managed to resist it in favour of tracing her tongue across his top lip. His arm grasped the back of her neck, pulling her down into the kiss.
The second kiss with Xander was nothing like the first, this kiss was open-mouthed and sloppy, his tongue searched out Tara's. His mouth then slipped away from Tara's and he bit down her chin, he then continued down leaving a wet trail down her neck. He reached her breasts with great enthusiasm, sucking and biting at every piece of flesh he could reach. Suddenly he bit down hard on the underside of her breast, Tara was torn between wrenching away, squirming closer and screaming so she settled for squirming on the spot and rubbing her thighs together.
Xander gently kissed the spot where he'd bitten, almost as an apology, "Anya was right, you do have brilliant breasts!" Tara would have blushed bright red if she'd had the blood available.
They both looked down when Anya failed to comment upon being agreed with. She had popped up from Xander's lap, her cheeks were puffed out like a hamsters. She held a finger up to indicate that they should wait. She then leaned over the edge of the bed and spat into the trashcan.
"Tastes like chicken," Anya said in a deadpan. Both Xander and Tara looked at her blankly. She sighed, "There's no point wasting jokes on the post orgasmic, they never get it."
Tara looked around Xander and Anya's bathroom to check she hadn't left any stray items of clothing lying around but she hadn't. All her clothes were on. Her hair was neat and her face was clean, she was going to have to leave the bathroom again.
Opening the door she saw that Xander and Anya were still in bed, Anya was snuggled against Xander's chest reading a bridal magazine.
Tara cleared her throat, they both looked up at her. Anya smiled, Xander looked a combination of embarrassed and confused, very much how Tara felt she herself must look.
"So I'm going to head off now."
"Are you sure?" Anya asked, "You could always stay here," she patted the mattress next to her.
"Yeah," Xander added, "you could sleep on the couch or something."
"No, I should go home, I have to get up early."
Tara walked through the dark apartment and closed the front door behind her. Standing out in the bright light of the hallway, she wondered how it was possible to feel so alone after being so close to two people.