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She’s never been an easy sleeper. Even when she was young, reading under the covers until the early hours of the morning, only turning off the flashlight when her eyes were too grainy to keep going. Her mother always tutted at her dark circles, told her that her scowl made them seem even more severe as she slumped at the kitchen table, spoon knocking into the side of her cereal bowl as she tried to blink the sleep away.
When her phone lights up next to her, she tries to ignore it. Something about blue light and your circadian rhythm and melatonin and good sleep hygiene or whatever. She caves when the notification pops through a second time two minutes later.
z
you up?
She tries to ignore the way her stomach flips.
carol
I’m just heading to bed now
She hits send and puts it back on the nightstand, face down, before itchy fingers pick it up again.
carol
Why?
She waits. Taps her screen when it dims. Rolls her eyes at herself and checks the news, before putting it down again. Face up, this time.
She shuts her eyes, but she’s wired now, feet rubbing against each other. It’s cold in the bedroom and her toes sting from the friction, but she’s always run warm, wakes up with the cover halfway off the bed most mornings. She sees the change in light through her eyelids and tries to convince herself that she could ignore it, before sighing and grabbing her phone again.
z
bring me a salad from wendy’s?
carol
It’s half eleven?
z
it’s open until midnight
carol
You want me to bring you a salad at the bar in the middle of the night?
z
apple pecan
and a pack of marlboroughs too
gold
carol
Don’t you serve food?
z
im not eating fries for the third night in a row
do you want me to get scurvy
please?
She smiles despite herself.
carol
I’ll be fifteen
—
carol
I’m outside
z
i don’t remember there being an outside bar i’ll have to let yelp know
She rolls her eyes as she turns the engine off and steps outside, the breeze cool against her still-wet hair. Maybe Zosia is rubbing off on her.
It’s quiet when she steps inside, the music low and chatter replaced with the sound of pool balls clacking. There’s maybe seven or eight people inside, a booth full of out-of-place younger girls, a couple in the corner sitting a little too close considering it’s a public space.
Zosia’s behind the bar, back turned to her. She’s got an oversized tee on today, grey, a little faded, the neck ripped so it hangs off one shoulder, no bra strap visible. Carol’s mouth goes a little dry, then sees the jeans she’s chosen - black, tight, low-rise - and it stops working altogether.
She’s a strange kind of underdressed, in a burgundy sweatsuit that’s generously oversized. It’s not like it’s an upmarket establishment by any means, but everyone in the bar at least looks like they were expecting to leave the house. The hoodie hangs low over the waistband of the sweatpants, rolled at the hip to stop the excess fabric from spilling out over the cuffs at her ankles. She’s swamped in it, and shoves the sleeves up her arms in an attempt to prove she has a body underneath all the soft cotton.
She walks up to the bar, sneakers silent against the tacky floor, and considers saying something but settles for watching Zosia stack glasses for a little longer. She's not as built as Carol is, but has a different kind of strength, lithe and toned.
“Sorry, you can’t bring food in here,” someone says from the other end of the bar, and both of their heads swing towards the voice. It’s the same guy she was closing with a couple of weeks ago - Michael, or something.
Zosia spins around, catches sight of her, and for a second her features soften, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. For a second, she looks genuinely happy to see her. Then, her eyes land on the bag, and she pounces forward, paper rustling as it's pulled over the sticky wood.
"You're okay, Manny, it's for me.”
She unwraps it eagerly, pulling the plastic fork out and digging in immediately, lips closing around a mouthful of salad as she moans softly, apple crunching between her back teeth.
“Wait, aren’t you…” The other guy trails off as he walks closer, swinging a towel over his shoulder as he squints. “You were here a while ago? Drinking whiskey?”
She flushes and tucks her chin into the neckline of her hoodie.
“Yep. Just dropping off a salad for Zosia.” She pushes off from where she’s been leaning on the bar, waves awkwardly at the pair. “I’ll just-”
“No!” Zosia’s fingers have wrapped themselves around her wrist. When she turns back, it looks like the action has surprised her as much as it did Carol. “Stay. I’ll pour you a drink, on me. Besides, you can drive me home after.”
“Don’t you close at two?”
Zosia flashes her a grin, takes another bite of her salad. “Time will fly,” she quips.
“What- I’m not waiting here for two hours, Zosh.” The nickname slips out without her realising, already off-kilter from the invitation to stay. Zosia just pouts a little, widens her eyes, and the low lights from across the room sparkle in her irises like they had the first time they met.
“I got a lift here. You’re gonna leave me here to fend for myself?” The play is obvious, but the neanderthal-butch part of Carol’s brain folds like a fucking lawn chair, and she finds herself sliding onto a bar stool without fully registering that she’s doing it.
“Whiskey,” she says, gruffly, and Zosia reaches out and pinches her cheek.
“You got it, piesku.”
By the time she recovers from the touch, Zosia is already at the other end of the bar, pulling out something from under the counter, and she loses her words again at the way the jeans are pulled over her hips. She tears her eyes away to see Manny staring at her, horror and realisation dawning on his face.
“You?” Is all he manages to say at first.
She blanches, looks around for help, but Zosia is out of earshot.
“You, and-” he jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “And her?” His accent is thicker when he’s distressed, she noticed. It suits him, weirdly. He looks like the kind of guy who rarely strays from mildly perturbed.
“Uh, Zosia?”
She swaggers back over, glass of whiskey in her hand, and the glint in her eyes tells Carol she knows exactly why she’s called.
“You are sleeping with the pathetic woman who could not hold her whiskey?”
“I-” Carol starts, indignant, but Zosia just laughs.
“Manny, this is Carol. Carol, Manny.” She gestures between the two of them before sliding the drink across the counter with a wink.
“It’s Manousos,” he says, tinged with the pain and exasperation of no doubt repeating it a thousand times over to no avail, and Carol hides her smile behind her glass.
“Carol Sturka. Nice to meet you, Manny,” she retorts, and is met with Zosia’s laugh, melodic and mocking, and Manousos turning with a huff to clean tables.
When he’s gone, Zosia leans back over the bar, grimacing at the sticky feeling on her forearms. She steals a sip of Carol’s whiskey, eyes widening in mock horror at Carol’s performative outrage, before shovelling another forkful of salad in her mouth.
“I’m not sure I’m such a fan of being known as the ‘pathetic woman who can’t hold my whiskey’.” She takes a sip of the alcohol and tries to convince herself that it’s the reason for the flush on her cheeks instead of the other woman’s proximity.
“Well then, you better learn how to handle your drink better,” Zosia replies, before turning away to serve a customer. Carol tries not to pout at the comment or the distance, and fails miserably at both.
She pulls out her phone to check her emails, considers if firing one off to her agent at half midnight would be unprofessional, and then does it anyway. Zosia calls over her shoulder to Manousos that she’s going for a smoke, and when she looks up, her palm is outstretched. She frowns for a second before remembering the pack of cigarettes in her pocket, fishes it out of the folds of fabric and hands it over, moving to stand up.
“No, stay,” Zosia stops her, pulling open the plastic wrap with her teeth. Carol’s not sure how many more times her mouth can go dry before it’s considered a medical issue. “It’s cold outside, I’ll be back in a second.” She says the last part fondly, touching the back of her hand before pulling away. “Besides, I don’t want to condition you with cigarettes and that alleyway.”
She’s left blushing, both centimetre-wide silvery scars on her arm and shoulder suddenly hot. She turns back to her phone, wonders if it’ll endear Manousos to her if he catches her playing Candy Crush or if it’ll break him. She decides against it,
Then, a body in the seat next to her. She knows it’s intentional because she’s sitting on stool eight of nine, and the first seven are free.
“Hey,” it says, with a not-insignificant amount of alcohol lacing the word, dragged out and lethargic.
She looks around to find a young woman, maybe twenty-five, a mostly empty glass of red wine in her hand and a top that leaves mostly nothing to the imagination.
“Hey?” She spins around on her chair, looks for anyone else she might have been talking to.
“I’m Lydia,” she giggles, and Carol wonders what the fuck is happening.
“I’m Carol.”
The blonde titters, hinges forwards at the waist to get closer. The silver top she’s wearing is paired with cowboy boots and perhaps the shortest denim miniskirt she’s ever seen in her life. She’s currently bearing witness to an amount of cleavage that borders on public indecency. She could have been an extra in a Carrie Underwood music video, actually.
“Carol’s a cute name,” Lydia says as she reaches out to prop her arm on the bar, fingers grazing Carol’s own. She has to stop herself from scoffing because, for all her qualities, and there are some, her name being ‘cute’ is not one of them.
“Uh, thanks.” She racks her brains for what to say next. “You here for anything special tonight?”
Lydia laughs, loudly. Too loudly for the interaction to mean anything but get-in-my-pants, and she’s flattered, but the bartender twelve years her junior has already taken the only controversially young bedfellow position she had open.
“It’s my birthday!”
“And you chose to spend it here?” Another laugh, louder this time at the joke, and she wraps cold fingers around her wrist in the same place Zosia had earlier. It feels wrong, and she tries not to dwell on it.
“You’re funny!” She says, like it’s a surprise. “No, we were at, like, a different bar before, but they kicked us out.” She pouts, then perks up as she points to a booth behind them. “My friends are here!”
Carol turns on the barstool, Lydia’s fingers still tight around her wrist. There’s a group of three girls huddled together, two looking exactly how Lydia seems to be feeling, and one clear designated driver who is nursing a glass of water with a look on her face that tells Carol she’s contemplating the fastest way to burn the bar to the ground.
“Oh, that’s… nice. How old are you?”
She giggles and leans in even closer, and her breath is a mix of red wine and something sweet, maybe amaretto. Carol winces internally, already knows the state the girl’s going to be in the next morning, has been there more than a few times herself, and considers the most subtle yet effective way to remove her hand from her wrist. Then there’s a door slam and quick footsteps, and Zosia is standing in front of them.
“You’ve had enough,” is the only thing she says, eyes steely as she fixes a glare on Lydia.
“What? No, I-”
“Please don’t make a scene,” Zosia interrupts, voice fake-sweet and syrupy, and she reaches out to scoop the wine glass up, ditching the rest of the lukewarm liquid in the sink behind her.
“Hey, I wasn’t done with that!” As she moves to stand up from the stool she slips, elbows thudding on the wood, and Carol has a horrible sense of whatever déjà vu is called when you see it happen to someone else.
“I think you were,” she says, then beckons Lydia’s friends over, who corral around her in an instant, engulfing her in a flurry of bouncy curls and purses that are surely too small to hold anything of actual importance. They hustle her from the bar chair, wiping at tears that have suddenly appeared on her cheeks, and head towards the door. She wonders, for a small and self-indulgent moment, what it’s like to be part of a gaggle of young twenty-something girls like that, if it’s like the high school dramas she used to watch in secret or if there’s something tender there after all.
When they’re gone, Carol turns to Zosia, who has her back to her and is furiously washing the wine glass despite the dishwasher being open and half-full a foot over.
“Zosia?”
“Yeah?” It’s loaded.
“Are you… are you okay?”
The younger woman spins around, dishcloth spinning around the rim of the glass with enough force that it looks like it might break.
“Yeah, why?”
“I don’t know, you were a little… harsh?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Figures that since you like drinking until you can’t stand, you’d be fine with some kid doing it too.”
“Woah, what?” Zosia says nothing, eyes fiery and mouth downturned in a sneer. She scrabbles for something to say. “It was her birthday,” is what she decides on. Zosia’s eyebrows shoot up. Wrong choice.
“Ah, right. Just old enough for you to fuck, then?”
“I- what?”
“So is this your thing? Picking up young girls in a dive bar?”
“Zosia, I-”
“I’m just saying, it seems pretty trashy to-”
“Zosh, stop, stop a minute,” she reaches out and grabs her wrist, leans in to the fact that it feels right this time.
“What?” She’s worked up, a flush spread over her high cheekbones, voice hard and grating instead of the usual low rasp. She looks pissed.
“She was hammered, Zosia.” She can’t stop herself from smoothing her thumb over the soft skin on the inside of the woman’s wrist. “Like, completely hammered. I’m not- I don’t do…” She gestures to the stool Lydia was on, then herself, then the general area around her. In spite of herself, Zosia cracks a smile, barely there. “This. I don’t do this.”
She nods, dark hair falling in her face.
“I don’t- you’re-” she stops herself.
“Articulate,” Zosia snips, but there’s no bite left in the word. Like a flash flood, the rain has come and gone.
“I have absolutely no interest in bringing Lydia a Wendy’s salad and a pack of cigarettes at midnight, okay?” She reasons, and Zosia softens, shoulders descending a couple of inches from where they had hitched themselves near her ears.
“Okay,” she agrees.
Then, she leans over the bar and kisses her, hard. Too hard for being in a public establishment, hands gripping her cheeks and teeth sinking into her lower lip, her tongue brushing her own.
They break apart to the sound of Manousos clearing his throat, arms crossed in front of his body and both eyebrows situated somewhere near his hairline.
“Manny, close up for me?” Zosia says, a little breathless, already digging behind the bar for her cigarettes and phone and spinning on her heel.
“What?”
“You owe me,” she justifies, pulling her coat down from a hook next to the door that leads to the storage room. Manousos opens his mouth to complain before pinching the bridge of his nose and giving up. She gets the sense that he knows when to pick his battles when it comes to Zosia, and is fast realising she needs to learn too.
“Okay. Okay!” He holds his hands out, gestures at the door with a hefty dose of exasperation. “Enjoy your night with Carol Sturka.”
Zosia smiles, wicked enough that Carol feels her stomach lift a little, like the drop on a rollercoaster.
“Oh, I will.”
—
The car ride home is mostly silent, Zosia busying herself with eating her salad and Carol singing along to the radio under her breath. When she asks her to remind her of her address, Zosia just fixes her with a scathing look, like it’s the stupidest thing she could have said. She guesses they’re going back to hers, then.
The quiet is nearly comfortable. Whenever she’s with Zosia, there’s always the hint of something coming, though. Like when the air gets heavy with rain that’s not yet fallen. The expectation is just like humidity, actually, filling up her lungs in such a way that it feels like she’s never quite taking a complete breath in.
She gets sheepish when Zosia unfolds her long legs from the car and stalks up to the front door like she’s the one who lives there, and she fumbles with the keys as she trots to catch up.
“Uh, I haven’t,” she struggles to isolate her front door key out of the two that are on the chain. Zosia quirks an eyebrow. “I haven’t cleaned. Or gone grocery shopping.”
“I just ate a salad,” is all Zosia replies with, and Carol laughs self-consciously as she finally slots the key in the lock.
“Right, right.”
She pushes the door open and stands back, the younger woman strutting into the house first. She’s thrown her leather jacket on the console table and kicked her shoes off by the time Carol has re-locked the front door, and she wonders again how she moves so fast. When her own shoes have been slipped off, she walks into the living room to find Zosia nosing around the bar, cigarette already lit.
She considers telling her not to smoke inside. Remembers the whole picking your battles thing.
“You, uh, you want a drink?”
She feels awkward, the space suddenly too big with another body in it. It’s weird, another woman in her house, taller than she was, confident but not completely familiar, eyes roaming the bottles on the shelves in a way that she never would have.
“Carol,” she starts, pausing to pull a whiskey bottle she likes the look of out before pouring a healthy glass, just one. “Are we going to do this every time?”
She saunters back to her, taking a sip, before passing the glass to her with a raise of her eyebrows. Carol takes a sip, feels the heat of her gaze and the whiskey bring a flush to her cheeks almost immediately. Zosia takes the glass back.
“Do what?”
“This whole awkward, polite dance.” She drinks, eyes closing as she lets the smooth alcohol pass over her tongue. “You want to fuck me, yes?” She takes a drag.
“I- yes?”
“And I want to fuck you. So instead of doing all-” she gestures around her, flails her arms just like Carol had earlier, a little mocking, “-this, why don’t you just take me to bed?”
She drains the whiskey, takes a final pull of the cigarette, and stubs it out at the bottom of the glass.
Carol feels all the breath leave her lungs at once, the single inhale she has the time for shaky on the way back in, before she surges forward and kisses her.
It’s the same kind of kiss as the one in the bar: deep, full of lips and teeth. She can taste the smoke and whiskey on Zosia’s tongue and moans immediately, before whining at the dirty laugh Zosia spits into her mouth. She doesn’t think it’ll ever get old, the way her heart immediately picks up, pulse loud in her ears as the other woman bites her lip just shy of hard enough to bleed.
She walks them back towards the hallway, elbows bumping on the doorframe as she clumsily steers them to the stairs. Zosia’s hands slip under her hoodie, fingers cold on her abs, and she hisses when she digs her nails in. She’s grabby, more than usual, hands never quite settling in one place before she decides she’s had enough of the sensory deprivation and starts to tug the fabric up around her torso.
Carol pulls back, just enough to whip the article of clothing off and drop it on the ground, leaving her standing there in the sports bra she hurriedly pulled on before leaving. Zosia just stares. She fights the urge to cross her arms and fidget.
“What?”
“Did you work out today?” She’s panting, she realises, lips glistening.
“What? Yeah, just before I showered and went to bed. Why?”
Zosia’s eyes darken, and she reaches out to paw at her stomach and one of her biceps.
“You’re so fucking strong,” she nearly moans, fingers digging into the muscles Carol tenses in response. “No wonder you’re so fucking stupid.”
Carol doesn’t get a chance to defend herself because Zosia is already kissing her again, licking deep into her mouth, and she doesn’t think twice before wrapping her arms around her thighs and lifting the taller woman onto her hips.
Zosia moans into her mouth, and she relishes in the feeling of catching her off guard, fingertips now digging into the back of her neck as she hangs on to her. Carol takes a step towards the stairs and is stopped with hands pawing at her collarbones.
“Stop, you-” she breaks off with a moan as the blonde kisses a path down her neck, sucks a red bruise over the freckle on the column of her throat. “Carol, you can’t carry me up the stairs, idiot, put me down.”
Carol grazes her teeth over still sensitive skin, chuckles against her.
“Oh?” She hitches her up on her hips a little more firmly and starts to walk up the stairs, steps slow but steady, pausing on the landing so she can press Zosia against the wall. “Baby, you weigh, like, one hundred and twenty pounds.”
Zosia pulls back a little, face flushed. “And-” her voice cracks, and she has to clear her throat to continue. “And how much can you squat?”
“Like, one hundred forty-five? Fifty?”
Zosia looks like she goes through at least three stages of grief, face cycling from shock, to disbelief, and settling on a pained sort of acceptance. If Carol had to guess, it looks sort of like she’s coming to terms with the fact that, after it’s all said and done, she still wants to fuck her.
“Mój Boże,” is all she says, under her breath, exasperated and wanting all at once, before she swings back in for another kiss.
It’s messier, her hands coming to tangle in Carol’s short hair, and her fists clench and unclench like she’s dying to grab it and tug hard enough that tears spark in the older woman’s eyes, and though the thought nearly makes her knees, weak she’s grateful she holds back enough to let her get them both upstairs.
She starts moving again, steps slow and steady up the stairs. It’s tiring, but the feeling of Zosia’s warm thighs wrapped around her hips and the way she moans into her mouth with every step means she’s sure as shit not going to give up, and she slides her hands around her body to grab at her ass and back. She can feel the way the brunette’s body responds to the touch, the way the muscles next to her spine tense up, the slight scratch of pain when her fingernails dig into her scalp.
At the top of the stairs, she expects to carry them into the bedroom, but Zosia unhooks her legs from her waist with urgency she’s not seen from her before, desperate fingers pushing at the band of her trousers.
“Fucking-” she scrabbles for the drawstring, finds it and tugs it loose sharply. “Off, take these off.”
Carol complies, the sweatpants pooling at her ankles as she steps out of them. Zosia is already whipping her own shirt off, Carol’s hunch earlier about her lack of bra satisfyingly accurate, and so she gets to work unbuttoning and unzipping her jeans.
When the shirt is over her head, she looks up, eyes trailing down her body as she registers the fact that her underwear is a set, her skintight boxer briefs the same heather-grey material as her bra, and she groans at the sight.
“God, you’re so hot it pisses me off,” Zosia says, and though the delivery is a little unclear Carol sure gets the message, pulling her in at the waist to kiss her again. She’s pawing at Zosia’s jeans, and the other woman slaps her hands away before pushing them down herself, Carol’s upper hand officially lost.
Pressing her shoulders back, a little roughly, she steps back enough to shimmy the tight material down her legs. Her lips are bright red and kiss-swollen, and Carol feels the sight settle deep in her core.
“Go lie on the bed,” she orders, and Carol starts to walk away, pulling the sports bra over her head with a speed that surprises even her. She hooks her fingers in her boxers, but is stopped by Zosia calling out from behind her. “No, those stay. I want to see you ruin them.”
Carol’s grateful the bed is only a couple of steps away, on account of the fact that her knees just went embarrassingly weak.
When she’s situated, propped up on her elbows in the middle of the mattress, she looks up to see the younger woman walking into the bedroom, and she gets a criminally short look at her underwear of choice today - a thong, lacy and red - before that too is discarded at the foot of the bed.
She can’t help but feel like a prey animal, lying there prone, as Zosia crawls up the bed towards her, eyes lidded and her lips settled into a satisfied smirk. She’s unbearably hot and she knows it, the confidence radiating off her, the absolute belief that Carol wants her so badly she’d do anything for her. She’s not wrong.
“Lie back,” she says, and Carol’s elbows fall out from under her in a second, back hitting the bed with enough force that some of the air leaves her lungs. Zosia rolls her eyes but it’s fond, the blonde’s obedience equal parts endearing and pathetic.
She settles over her hips for a minute, leaning down to pull Carol’s lower lip in between her teeth and bite, chuckling at the whine she hears, before climbing the rest of the way up her body until her knees are level with the top of her head, spread out to match the width of her shoulders. Carol’s mouth falls open without realising it, and Zosia gasps lightly at the sight, hand coming down to rest against her cheek.
“Good girl,” she murmurs, before lowering herself down.
Carol moans at the taste of her instantly. It’s everything and nothing like it was that first night, her taste just as heady but the situation far sweeter. Zosia’s thighs are soft on her cheeks, the perfect combination of smooth skin and hard muscle, and her hands move to bury themselves in Carol’s hair as she starts to tilt her hips.
She sighs as she does, breathy and oh-so-pretty, dragging her core over the older woman’s tongue in a steady rhythm. It’s all Carol can do to look up at her helplessly, up past her slightly tanned stomach, the curve of her breasts, the way her neck looks even more slender and elegant from beneath when she’s got her head tilted up like this. She’s beautiful, the glimpse of the expression on her face that Carol catches when she moves every now and then stealing the breath from her lungs.
When she’s not performing so much, when she lets herself go, her features soften just a little, eyebrows pulled in and up in the middle, lips trembling with every moan and sigh that falls past them. Carol finds herself thankful that her mouth is otherwise occupied, in case something stupid falls out. It seems to happen a lot around her.
She slides her palms up from where they’ve been sitting on the tops of Zosia’s thighs, moves them to rest around her waist, thumbs pressing at the sharp jut of her hipbones. She can feel her muscles move as she grinds atop her, the way each set expands and contracts with every buck of her hips. She feels serpentine, her lithe body coiled to strike.
“Fuck, you’re so good,” she pants above her, movements a little sharper now, a little jerkier. Carol feels the praise settle heavy in her core, moans and clenches her thighs together. Zosia laughs, breathless, never one to let anything go unsaid. “You getting off to this, baby? You like it when I ride your face and say you’re good?”
Carol’s hips rise against nothing, seeking friction that isn’t there, and Zosia laughs again, the sound doing absolutely nothing to quell the other woman’s suffering. It’s so mean-sounding that it sends her into a near panic, cheeks heating up and another groan ripping from her throat.
“So good for me, such a perfect mouth.”
The drag of her hips is insistent, her nails pressing against Carol’s skull as she gets closer to the edge.
“You like it when I use you like this?” She questions, and Carol moans into her again. She grips her waist tighter, needs to feel something solid under her fingers.
Zosia’s panting now, grinding hard and fast on her mouth, and Carol can barely hear her breathy sighs and whimpers over the blood rush in her ears. She tilts her head slightly, shifts the position of her tongue, and Zosia gasps above her.
“Fuck, Carol, just like that, just-” she cuts herself off, the rest of her sentence caught in her throat as she comes, her hips stilling before bucking wildly. She rides it out like Carol’s not even there, like she’s part of the furniture, and the older woman clenches her thighs together tight at the knowledge she’s being used.
When she’s done, she hinges forward with a sigh, elbows coming to rest on the headboard as she catches her breath. Carol takes the opportunity to drag her tongue through her, gentle but firm, savouring the taste of her under the guise of cleaning her up. She strays too far up, nudging her clit, and Zosia flinches away with a gasp that turns into a raspy laugh.
“Enough, piesku,” she mumbles, swinging one of her legs over and shuffling down the bed to lie on her back, an arm thrown over her face as she regulates her breathing.
Carol turns, wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, and tries not to look at her like she’s hung the stars in the sky. Zosia cracks an eye open and promptly rolls it at the expression on her face, which means she failed, miserably.
“What does piesku mean?” She does her best to imitate the way Zosia says it, knows she’s failed yet again at the soft snort she hears. The other woman rolls onto her side to face her, snaking a hand round to cup the back of her neck and pull her in for a kiss. She groans at the taste of herself, still thick on Carol’s tongue, before dragging her hand down her body, even the lightest of touches on her nipples making her hips leap forward.
She runs her fingers under the waistband of her boxers, teasing, until Carol’s entire midsection is covered in goosebumps. She trails her hand lower, pressing at her over her underwear and laughing into her mouth when Carol’s whole body convulses. Zosia pulls away with her lip between her teeth, kissing a path across her cheek to just below her ear.
“Puppy,” is all she says, husky and low.
“Wh- what?” She can’t think, not when she’s already soaked through her underwear.
“Piesku,” she whispers, before biting the lobe of her ear. “It means puppy.”
Carol whines, and in any other situation she would acquiesce and agree it was decidedly puppy-like.
“I’m not a- fuck, Zosh,” her complaint is lost to them both as Zosia presses more firmly against her, boxers so slick there’s hardly any friction.
“No?” The younger woman tilts so she’s further on top of her, Carol rolling onto her back again. “You’re not my puppy?” It’s lilting, teasing, and the tone of her voice makes her ball her eyes shut in futile defence.
“Zosia, please-” this time, she’s interrupted by Zosia sliding her hand into her underwear and dragging her fingers through her, and her hands come up to grasp at her back, trying to keep her close.
“So wet,” she coos, and Carol could scream at the way she says it, somewhere between proud and humiliating. She does it again and again, fingers slipping with how wet she is, the intermittent pressure on her clit only serving to wind her up even more.
“Please, Zosia, I want-”
Zosia just hums, not stopping the movement of her fingers. “You want?”
“Fuck, Zosia,” she whines, blunt fingernails digging into the soft skin of the brunette’s back, pulling her as close as she can. “I want you to touch me, please.”
“Then tell me you’re mine.”
“God, please, I’m yours, Zosia, I’m yours, please just touch me,” she begs, and Zosia leans back to kiss her again as she finally slides her fingers into her. She keens into her mouth pathetically, too loud for the room, hips bucking up with every thrust.
She’s close already, which seems to be a running theme whenever she’s around Zosia, desire coiling deep in her stomach, the press of her fingers hitting inside of her just right.
Then, suddenly, nothing.
“No, no, Zosia, please,” she’s babbling, scrambling frantically to grab her hand and try to push it back down towards her core.
“Where’s your strap?” Zosia asks, and she pulls back enough for Carol to see her face, a flush high and bright on her cheeks, strands of hair strewn over her forehead. She looks at least marginally as desperate as Carol feels.
“What?” She feels like every neuron is firing at once.
Zosia’s too impatient to wait, swinging her body off the bed to rummage through the bedside drawer. Carol doesn’t have the wherewithal to feel embarrassed at the multitude of sins hidden in there, watches with bleary eyes as Zosia bats sleeping pills and old chargers out of the way. Seeing the blue dildo in her hand makes her mouth go dry.
“On your stomach,” she orders, and Carol just blinks at her stupidly. “Carol, turn over.” Her voice is sterner the second time, the gravel in it making her body move before her mind even registers it. She doesn’t watch Zosia pull the harness over her hips, choosing instead to bury her face in the pillow below her and ball the sheets in her fists, barely resisting the urge to grind down on her hand.
She feels the mattress shift beside her before two warm thighs straddle her legs, her back arching at the brush of hair she feels against her spine as Zosia leans down to kiss the nape of her neck.
“Mine,” Zosia whispers into her ear, before sinking her teeth into the meat of her shoulder. Carol yelps at the sudden sting, before whining at the way she laves her tongue over the bite mark. Zosia chuckles, the puff of air cool against the wet skin.
She trails her hands down her back, nails digging in when she reaches her ribcage, hard enough that she winces. Zosia sees her flinch, does it again anyway, and her hips shift impatiently.
“Zosia, please,” she begs, and there’s that laugh again, low and raspy. “Please fuck me, baby, please.” The way her voice breaks halfway through must have some effect on her, because she feels her weight shift back before the silicone is nudging between her thighs.
She pushes forward in one long stroke, filling her up so suddenly that she nearly sobs at the feeling.
“Fuck, Carol,” Zosia moans as she presses her hips flush with Carol’s ass, pausing there for a moment.
Carol feels like she might come apart at the seams. With Zosia’s weight on top of her pressing her down into the mattress, she feels contained, the way she feels inside her overwhelming. She’s being managed again, controlled, subdued.
As Zosia pulls out slightly and thrusts back in, starting up a steady rhythm, she can feel her ability to think, to speak, seep out of her. She’s whining with every stroke, powerless to stop it.
“You think she’d fuck you like this?” Zosia bites out, and Carol can’t find the words to ask what she means. “The girl from the bar? What was her name?”
She tries to shake her head, succeeds only in pressing her face into the pillow even further. She hears the smack before she feels it, ass suddenly smarting from the impact of Zosia’s open palm.
“Her name, Carol.”
“Lydia, it was Lydia,” she whines, the skin flushing a hot red from the slap. With every thrust she moans, mouth slack against the pillow. She thinks she’s drooling.
“Would Lydia fuck you like this?”
She shakes her head again, tears welling in her eyes. “No, no, just you, just- fuck-” she breaks off again at a fist in her hair jerking her head up, her face now free from the folds of the pillow. The cool air of the room hits her hot cheeks and a strangled moan emerges from her mouth.
“No? She’d fuck you better?” She punctuates her words with a sharp slam of her hips, and every jerk of Carol’s prone body presses her clit down onto the bundled sheets below her.
“No, Zosh, she couldn’t-” she breaks off with another groan as Zosia hinges forwards, hand moving from her hair to grab roughly at her jaw whilst she props herself up with her other hand.
“She couldn’t fuck you better?”
“No, no, you fuck me so good, never had anyone fuck me like this,” she’s blurting out the first things that come to mind, hoping that how earnest she’s being is enough to convince the other woman. She feels like she’ll die if Zosia does anything even close to stopping.
“Yeah?” Zosia leans down, close to her ear. Carol can smell her, the smoke stuck to her hair, the sweat on her neck, the leftover whiskey scent on her breath. She whimpers, squeezes her eyes shut tight and bares her neck, submissive to a tee.
“Nobody, Zosia, please,” she’s pleading for something, terrified of where she’s going with it. The pressure between her legs is building every time she thrusts in, her whole body on fire, Zosia’s nipples hard against the smooth skin of her back.
“Not even your wife?” She moves her hand down to wrap around her throat instead, thumb and fingertips pressing into the pulse points just below the sharp corners of her jawline. Carol feels the effects instantly, her heartbeat suddenly loud in her ears, mind emptying of thoughts, the way the toy pushes into her front wall suddenly that much more intense.
“Zosia, I-” she struggles to get the words out between the tilt of her head back and the pressure around her throat.
“No? She fuck you better than this?”
Carol tenses, expecting another slap for her lack of answer, but instead she seems to have doubled down on her effort with her cock, the force of her movements shifting Carol back and forth over the bed. She stretches her arms out to brace herself on the headboard, whines brokenly when the extra stability means Zosia fucks into her harder.
“Because we can stop, if you want,” Zosia teases, but her voice is hard. Carol feels something brush down her cheek, and realises she’s crying.
“No, baby, please, please don’t stop, please,” she chants, begging pathetically, and Zosia laughs.
“Then say it.”
“I-” she hesitates, and Zosia’s hand tightens around her throat.
“Say it, baby, and I’ll let you come,” she bargains, and Carol breaks.
“You’re better than she was, Zosh, nobody’s fucked me like you, I swear, you’re- you’re-”
“Good girl, good girl,” she coos, adding her nails to the pressure on her throat. “Come for me, Carol,” Zosia allows.
Carol comes with a howl, voice cracking with the other woman’s hand still gripping her neck, body pulled as taut as Zosia’s weight on her back allows. She’s fucking her through it, her strokes shallower, pulling out only slightly before filling her again. Every time she does, Carol hears herself moan, broken and desperate.
After, when Zosia’s slowed down, when she sinks into her one final time and lets Carol’s head fall forward, her own forehead coming to rest on the blonde’s clammy skin, her touches turn gentle. She strokes her hands down her sides, presses sweet kisses to her shoulders. Carol basks in it, feels like a flower turning to face the sun for a second, before the pressure inside of her becomes too much and she starts to shift, wincing slightly.
Zosia pulls out, and Carol’s barely aware of her movements, blinks slowly as she feels her body being turned over, limbs heavy like they’ve been pinned down. Zosia crawls back into bed - she must have gotten up to take the toy off, she realises belatedly - and pulls the sheets over them both.
“Y’okay?” She manages to say, and Zosia nudges her arm aside and rests her head on her chest, only nodding yes after a few minutes.
“You?” Zosia asks, and she wills her hand to rise from where it’s curled around her body to instead trail nonsensical patterns over the skin of her shoulder.
Carol just hums. Her eyes are shutting again. She could fall asleep like this, Zosia’s weight a comforting, solid presence on top of her.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” She follows up, and Carol frowns, tries to remember what day it would be.
“Nothing. Maybe writing.”
It’s Zosia’s turn to hum, tracing the lines of Carol’s ribs.
“Can you give me a lift to the bar in the morning? My car’s there.”
Carol nods, feels herself slipping from consciousness. Then, a thought, barely there.
“I thought you said you got a lift in?” Zosia’s entire body stills. Even her breathing pauses for a second. It’s clear, even to Carol, that she’s recalibrating after being caught in her lie. The blonde feels the corners of her lips slide into a smirk, knows the satisfaction is leaking into her words. “Did you lie just so I’d drive you here?”
She’s completely motionless against her.
“That’s actually so embarrassing,” Carol finishes, dissolving into lazy giggles before Zosia eventually snaps and pinches the thin skin over her ribcage. “Okay, okay, Jesus. It’s sweet,” she chances, and there’s no tangible reaction. Which is better than a bad reaction, she rationalises.
“Shut up, piesku,” is the only reply she receives. She’s fine with that.