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What the frak?
The pain comes out of nowhere, centering down to her lower belly like ground glass in a barrel roll. Her instinctive moving away from the pain pulls her attention to the slick wetness between her thighs. She had been insatiable last night, pulling Laura to her again and again until they were both drenched in each other’s juices, but something was different…she raises her hips and feels liquid squish under her ass and groans. The frakking shot. She’d forgotten her frakking contraceptive shot and was getting her Godsdamn period all over Laura’s million thread-count imported sheets.
“Kara? You okay?”
Kara pushes the sheets down between their naked bodies, making a barrier.
“I forgot my Godsdamn shot.”
Laura gives her a lazy, sensual smile that says she thinks something is funny. It’s almost annoying but it makes her so adorable Kara doesn’t usually mind.
“We got pretty wild last night but I’m pretty sure I didn’t get you pregnant.”
“I mean I think I got my frakking period all over your sheets, okay?”
Kara’s pissed and is baffled by the way Laura’s expression softens as she looks at her.
“It’s okay, Kara. It’ll wash out. How much is it?”
Kara’s a little taken aback by this. Any blood is bad news, it’s hurt and stains and stinks when it gets old. She knows this from bandages not changed often enough, old wounds and home wrappings.
“I dunno.” She props on her elbows and looks at Laura’s eyes, nodding when Laura takes the edge of the covers and raises her eyebrow in a question.
“Is it bad?” Kara doesn’t look. She finds periods uninteresting, a nagging reminder that someone forgot their shot, or that someone has decided to try for a baby. This has never been her.
“No, it’s not.”
There’s a note in Laura’s voice, like she’s seeing something special. Kara cranes her neck a little and looks down between her legs. Bright and dark red blood mingles wet on the sheets and in dried patches on her thighs. Some of her blond pubic hair is colored red as Laura’s hair. It looks like she’s taken a dagger to her crotch and as soon as she thinks that another sharp pain rips through her abdomen.
“Do you have a fetish I don’t know about?” She looks at Laura with curiosity. They’ve never discussed this before. Why would they? Neither one has periods when she’s paying attention to her appointments.
“No…but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen menstrual blood. I’d almost forgotten how bright red it was.” A blush colors Laura’s smooth creamy cheeks. “When I was young, I’d wear Aphrodite jewelry—-earrings and a necklace with dark red stones—when I had my period. A fad, I suppose.”
Kara shrugs. “I never got into that. A neighbor lady took me to Aphrodite’s Temple the first time I got mine. My mother….” She stops talking and knows that Laura will understand.
Laura starts talking about how horny she used to get on that first day and goes into “orgasms help cramps”. Kara wants to get up and wash but Laura’s breath is soft on her left breast and she starts nodding. Laura is talking about remembering feeling like her clit and everything around it felt like fat swollen cherries the first day of her period, which Kara thinks is a little over the top until she realizes she does feel like everything between her legs is…ripe, and ready for…something. Harvesting, maybe.
Laura starts moving down there, and it’s not the frenzied fingering of the night before. It’s a pressure, as Laura presses her wrist and the heel of her hand against every bit of flesh between Kara’s legs, and the rhythm echoes somewhere inside her. Laura’s wrist is a pestle to Kara’s mortar and all the jagged glass is being ground to a fine, painless powder. Kara’s legs start shaking and Laura hums encouragement deep in her throat. A cool wind starts flooding from her spine down and blows all the pain away as her thighs clench around Laura’s arm and her free hand takes Laura’s other wrist in a death-grip until the shaking stops.
“Better?” Laura could pass for Aphrodite when she looks at Kara like that. A little part of her brain is wishing that Laura had been her mother instead of Socrata and she tells that part of her brain to shut the frak up, she likes Laura as a lover much better.
“Yeah. It’s easing up. Thanks.” The boneless feeling is starting to move over her limbs and she figures frak it, the sheets are ruined anyway, she can stay in bed a couple more minutes.
“Where are your panties?”
Kara points towards the dresser; she wasn’t sure how they ended up there. Probably the same way Laura’s ended up on the corner of the bookcase.
Laura drops a kiss on her cheekbone and gets out of bed, grabbing Kara’s panties and walking gracefully out of the bedroom. Kara collapses back against the pillows and swears she’ll get up and strip the bed any minute now.
Laura returns in a few minutes. Kara keeps her eyes closed until she hears the click of snaps.
“What’s that?”
Laura hands her the yellow panties she had on last night, a flannel menstrual pad snapped around the gusset. The cover is colored in different shades of blue, like a late evening sky, with white and gold stars and a buttery yellow half-moon. The colors are a bit faded and there are a few faint stains through the lighter areas.
“It’s all I could find. It’s old…I haven’t needed period supplies for a few years, but it’s clean.” She looks a little uncertain now. “I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine. It’s kind of…sweet, actually.”
Kara doesn’t spend much time thinking about the difference in their ages. Laura is every cliché about getting better with age and she never doesn’t keep up. But here, between Kara’s thighs, is a reminder that there is a difference. She is in the middle of something that Laura had moved past.
“I brought these. You looked pretty wiped out.” Laura’s smiling now, and hands Kara a warm washcloth and clean towel. Kara cleans herself and is glad Laura doesn’t offer to do this for her. There’s no way that wouldn’t feel like sickbay or a hospital bed. She shoves the washcloth to one side—these sheets are headed for the washer and stain remover anyway—and takes the pad-covered underwear and starts sliding them over her legs, lifting up her butt as she wriggles into them.
It feels a little bunchy as Kara finally side-rolls out of bed and starts stripping the sheets. By the time she gets to Laura’s side of the bed, everything has settled into place and isn’t as bad as she remembered.
Then Laura’s standing in front of her with so Godsdamn much love in her eyes for Kara, and it hits her that one of the most intimate things Laura’s ever worn is snugged tight against her own girlybits, and she lets go of the sheets and grabs her wonderful woman-friend-lover tight until their hearts are thrumming hard between their breasts in time with each other.
Laura’s bandaging wounds Kara didn’t even knew she had, and she’ll keep doing it, and Kara will keep following her steps on particular treacherous paths, Laura taking point, Kara watching her back.