pressedonjess

[pressedonjess]

I remember who you are.

There was a tinge of both worry and smugness inspired when the blue haired woman opened with those words. Preston was always somewhat aware of the two warring knee-jerk responses within her when someone admitted to knowing of her, or recognising her, or speaking of her in any general terms. She didn’t know if being self-aware in regards to her own ego was a redeemable quality, a tick in the ‘good person’ box. Probably not, they probably cancelled each other out if anything. Preston enjoyed being liked, but was unbothered when she was disliked. She actively tried to be a good person, bad people didn’t do that.

When she immediately wanted to ask what the woman remembered of her, where she knew her from, Jesse controlled herself. Remembered she was there for Benji. Would a bad person do that?

“There’s nothing wrong with Benjamin,” she intoned, returning her hand to join the other under her chin. “He’s superstitious. One of his many endearing quirks.” She eyed the drink she bought briefly, looked at Blue, stopped herself from taking it.

“This,” she gestured between them, “worked for him before. So he thinks asking me over here will work in his favor again. He forgets I’m very gay sometimes, and that it’s not always the best idea to send your very gay friend to talk to girls.”

She sighed. A good four or five seconds before making herself the topic of conversation wasn’t her worst record, definitely nowhere near the best though. In situations such as these, Jesse made the conscious thought to do what she always did: Lean into it.

“While we’re on the subject of me,” she dropped her hand to the table onto Blue’s wrist, with what she hoped was a charmingly cheeky enough grin to excuse her outward cockiness and inward, almost instantaneous contradiction. She curled her fingers around the girl’s wrist in her enthusiasm. “What do you remember?”

Unabashedly, Preston narrowed her gaze, studied Blue’s features, noted the freckles, the dark eyes, imagined her with dark hair, curls?

“Highschool?” She absently relinquished the hold on Blue’s wrist, pressing a finger to the red of her bottom lip in thought. “Art? Theatre? Volleyball?” 

act 1 scene 1

In small towns you should be mindful of what you could become known for. If you want to become known for anything at all, that is. It’ll definitely happen if you want it to. It’ll probably happen if you don’t. Did you slip in the rain one time while running for the bus? Congrats, now every time you go outside in the rain, someone is going to yell ‘Watch your step!’ or ‘Hey, be careful now!’ with that annoyingly cheerful smile, maybe the odd finger gun. Of course, small townsfolk can have a selective memory when it comes to what they know about you, or at least what they’ll shout at you in the street. Have a month’s-long torrid affair with the neighbor’s husband, completely wreck two families and end up living in the one motel in town for weeks? They’ll all remember, but the judgemental looks will stop after a year or so has gone by. God forbid you ever fall flat on your ass in public though.

Jesse Preston was a torrid love affair and a slapstick public fall wrapped into one.

Or at least she felt that way. Ever since sophomore year before her first day at a new school, where the kids her age had grown up with one another since pre-k. Penelope Preston had sat her daughter down that Sunday night before school, told her

‘Everyone’s gonna be watching. Doesn’t matter whether you stick with the crowd or cartwheel down the hall. They’re gonna see you either way. But you get to choose what they see.’

Penny Preston was cheesy as hell, but she’d never been one of those stage moms you see on Toddlers and Tiaras or whatever. Penny always encouraged her children to be themselves and to be loud about it. Both of her kids were super queer to some degree, and she had provided them with an environment where there hadn’t been a need for a nerve-wracking ‘coming out’ event. They just were. Mika Preston blamed the regular viewings of Rent for their gayness.

Of course, fifteen-year-old Jesse Preston chose to ‘cartwheel’. Terrified though she may have been, Jesse let her blonde curls go as big as they wanted, stole her brother’s star-shaped pink-tinted sunglasses and her mom’s fur lined coat and strutted down the hall to first period on that Monday morning, channelling her inner Penny Lane from Almost Famous and Maureen from Rent rolled into one. Over the months, drama club followed, as did afterschool art class, volleyball, and marching band. The youngest Preston had many items on the list titled: Things to be Thankful to Mom For. Somewhere near the top would be a thank you for not moving with her two queer kids to one of the many small towns that are outrageously homophobic and racist, because Jess sure did exercise her rights as a young queer woman. Or at least she tried to.

From reasonably early on Jesse knew she was pretty in the conventional sense. She had the blonde hair, blue eyes and legs for days going for her. When she hit sixteen and junior year, her new kid in school novelty had long since worn off but the nervous interactions and glances didn’t stop. Only problem was, she didn’t know what to do with it at first. 

She’d always been a smooth talker. Talked her way out of a speeding ticket that one time when her flight touched down late and she didn’t want to miss the town’s new year fireworks display. Schmoozed her way into the leading role of the high school production of The Twelfth Night so she could ‘rehearse’ with the girl playing Olivia. But the moment someone reciprocated – who wasn’t acting opposite her – Jesse Preston the confident wannabe leading lady turned into a blushing stuttering mess. It led to rumors of her liking girls but no one being completely sure, because there’d never been a relationship for the students to see and gayness to quantify. So all the boys bar the extremely confident one or two stayed away, and the girls… everything with the girls happened under bleachers or in dark unused rehearsal rooms.

Ten years later, after burlesque classes, several stage productions under her belt and now a debut album… it was more or less the same deal, only the stakes were different. There had been dates, which sometimes led to making out, one time led to a relationship. Nothing that lasted.

These days Preston had all the outward confidence of a woman who knew what she wanted and was good at getting it. In reality, she was the woman who needed a shot of Dutch courage in most high-stakes social situations, and even before the one thing she was best at and supposed to be most comfortable doing: being on stage. An extrovert bordering on exhibitionist who also happened to have stage fright? Typical.

So Jesse deployed an artistic approach to the armor she wore. An application of richly pigmented pink or red powder along her cheekbones and up toward her temples meant that girls could go ahead and make her blush. The bright colors and statement fashion choices meant that the attention she invited was hers to command. Even in a room full of people, most of which she didn’t know but who knew her Preston could feel the nerves pulling at the base of her spine.

She hadn’t been home for an extended length of time in around a year and a half. She was in the process of making a name for herself, so now that was what the town knew her for. Not little Jesse Preston the new girl, the theater kid, the enthusiastic volleyball player. Now she was a singer. Now there were expectations. All the thirty-somethings in town had heard her voice on Grey’s Anatomy, for shit’s sake. There was no turning back now… but she kind of had.

It was the wedding of some local high school sweethearts. She had been roped in by her friend Benji, one of the groomsmen who’d offered his services as ‘behind the scenes’ wedding photographer and hers as the wedding singer. She’d done her part, finished her set about an hour ago, providing her voice for the first dance. It had been an honour, she supposed. Most people settled for the DJ, they had asked for her to sing ‘their’ song live, the one that meant something to their love and the one they wanted to remember dancing to as a newly married couple for the rest of their lives.

Benji approached her as she leaned back against the bar, almost done with her second cosmopolitan but nowhere near finished her perusal of wedding guests on the dancefloor, or sat at the tables surrounding it.

“Are you gonna?” He reclined on his elbow next to her.

With her finger pressed absently to her chin, Preston angled her head towards him, not peeling her eyes from anything in particular. “Hm? Gonna what?”

Benji stepped in closer to her, she could feel his springy curls push against her cheek as he directed her gaze to where he must have assumed she had been looking already. Following his finger, she immediately found who he meant.

“Subtle.” Preston pushed Benji’s arm back to his side. It was hard to get a good look at the woman from the bar. Every now and again a dancing body would get in the way, or the light would hit her a certain way that would obscure her features. Preston couldn’t tell whether her hair was purple or blue. When the reds of the lights hit her, her hair shone almost metallic grey. It was a wonder Preston hadn’t noticed her first. Alas, Benji had. “Please,” she gestured with her glass, “by all means.”

“Oh, no no, no,” he immediately contradicted her, encouraging her to face him with a tug on her elbow. “Why do you think I called you?”

Preston complied, turning to lean forwards against the bar now, making sure the surface was dry where she folded her arms on the counter. “To hear me sing Sara Bareilles songs?”

“To be my wingman, man,” he corrected. His eyes shifted from Preston to the mystery-colored-hair woman and back. “Reel her in for me.”

Preston scrunched her face in response to the term, “Ew, she’s not a fish,” chancing a look over her shoulder. She couldn’t see what the woman was drinking, or even tell if she was with the people at her table or just occupying a chair. Nevertheless, she waved the bartender down and gestured at her near empty glass for another with a smile.

“Mm,” she conceded around her glass, finishing the last mouthful. “You obviously need the help. As if you don’t owe me enough already, Benjamin.” She smoothed down the fabric of her jumpsuit, making sure the tit-tape was still doing its job in keeping the edges of the low cut ‘V’ in place. The more modest dress she’d donned for the earlier part of the reception had been abandoned the moment she’d finished her set and the party was in full swing. “Alright,” she breathed, “The things I do for you.”

“Wait,” he caught her arm again, reaching up to fix something in her hair. She’d pinned it up since the performance, shoved three of the red roses from the centerpiece of the tables into her hair to make a head wreath. Matched her cheeks. “One of your flowers was coming out. There.”

“Aw,” she patted his cheek, “Might be hope for you yet. I’ll be back,” she gave herself a quick once over in the mirrored back wall of the bar, catching herself between the bottles and glasses. “Get a drink, stay there, look mysterious and aloof, but approachable.”

“You do know aloof literally means unapproachable, right?”

Preston waved him off over her shoulder to begin carefully meandering through the dancefloor towards the woman, expertly keeping her full glass from spilling. Once she was a few paces from her target, Preston glanced about to make sure she wouldn’t be interrupting something already in progress when she made her entrance, but she didn’t much care if she was.

Pulling up an empty chair into the space beside the woman, Preston first sat her glass on the table between them - close enough to the woman that it could be seen as an offering, but still within reach in case she didn’t want it, or in case one of the glasses of varying levels already on the table was hers.

“Hi,” Preston regarded the woman, injecting as much charm into her red-lipped smile as she could muster. Resting her elbow on the table and her chin in the palm of her hand, she inquired “Are you single? Are you single at this wedding? Wow,” She sat up straight, let the hand that was supporting her head fall to the table. “That totally sounded like I’m trying to sell you something. Hi,” she took a breath, offering her hand to the woman as she started over. “I’m Jesse Preston, and this is my attempt to wingman for my friend over at the bar there. I’m usually better at this.“

[pressedonjess]

act 1 scene 1

In small towns you should be mindful of what you could become known for. If you want to become known for anything at all, that is. It’ll definitely happen if you want it to. It’ll probably happen if you don’t. Did you slip in the rain one time while running for the bus? Congrats, now every time you go outside in the rain, someone is going to yell ‘Watch your step!’ or ‘Hey, be careful now!’ with that annoyingly cheerful smile, maybe the odd finger gun. Of course, small townsfolk can have a selective memory when it comes to what they know about you, or at least what they’ll shout at you in the street. Have a month’s-long torrid affair with the neighbor’s husband, completely wreck two families and end up living in the one motel in town for weeks? They’ll all remember, but the judgemental looks will stop after a year or so has gone by. God forbid you ever fall flat on your ass in public though.

Jesse Preston was a torrid love affair and a slapstick public fall wrapped into one.

Or at least she felt that way. Ever since sophomore year before her first day at a new school, where the kids her age had grown up with one another since pre-k. Penelope Preston had sat her daughter down that Sunday night before school, told her

‘Everyone’s gonna be watching. Doesn’t matter whether you stick with the crowd or cartwheel down the hall. They’re gonna see you either way. But you get to choose what they see.’

Penny Preston was cheesy as hell, but she’d never been one of those stage moms you see on Toddlers and Tiaras or whatever. Penny always encouraged her children to be themselves and to be loud about it. Both of her kids were super queer to some degree, and she had provided them with an environment where there hadn’t been a need for a nerve-wracking ‘coming out’ event. They just were. Mika Preston blamed the regular viewings of Rent for their gayness.

Of course, fifteen-year-old Jesse Preston chose to ‘cartwheel’. Terrified though she may have been, Jesse let her blonde curls go as big as they wanted, stole her brother’s star-shaped pink-tinted sunglasses and her mom’s fur lined coat and strutted down the hall to first period on that Monday morning, channelling her inner Penny Lane from Almost Famous and Maureen from Rent rolled into one. Over the months, drama club followed, as did afterschool art class, volleyball, and marching band. The youngest Preston had many items on the list titled: Things to be Thankful to Mom For. Somewhere near the top would be a thank you for not moving with her two queer kids to one of the many small towns that are outrageously homophobic and racist, because Jess sure did exercise her rights as a young queer woman. Or at least she tried to.

From reasonably early on Jesse knew she was pretty in the conventional sense. She had the blonde hair, blue eyes and legs for days going for her. When she hit sixteen and junior year, her new kid in school novelty had long since worn off but the nervous interactions and glances didn’t stop. Only problem was, she didn’t know what to do with it at first. 

She’d always been a smooth talker. Talked her way out of a speeding ticket that one time when her flight touched down late and she didn’t want to miss the town’s new year fireworks display. Schmoozed her way into the leading role of the high school production of The Twelfth Night so she could ‘rehearse’ with the girl playing Olivia. But the moment someone reciprocated – who wasn’t acting opposite her – Jesse Preston the confident wannabe leading lady turned into a blushing stuttering mess. It led to rumors of her liking girls but no one being completely sure, because there’d never been a relationship for the students to see and gayness to quantify. So all the boys bar the extremely confident one or two stayed away, and the girls… everything with the girls happened under bleachers or in dark unused rehearsal rooms.

Ten years later, after burlesque classes, several stage productions under her belt and now a debut album… it was more or less the same deal, only the stakes were different. There had been dates, which sometimes led to making out, one time led to a relationship. Nothing that lasted.

These days Preston had all the outward confidence of a woman who knew what she wanted and was good at getting it. In reality, she was the woman who needed a shot of Dutch courage in most high-stakes social situations, and even before the one thing she was best at and supposed to be most comfortable doing: being on stage. An extrovert bordering on exhibitionist who also happened to have stage fright? Typical.

So Jesse deployed an artistic approach to the armor she wore. An application of richly pigmented pink or red powder along her cheekbones and up toward her temples meant that girls could go ahead and make her blush. The bright colors and statement fashion choices meant that the attention she invited was hers to command. Even in a room full of people, most of which she didn’t know but who knew her Preston could feel the nerves pulling at the base of her spine.

She hadn’t been home for an extended length of time in around a year and a half. She was in the process of making a name for herself, so now that was what the town knew her for. Not little Jesse Preston the new girl, the theater kid, the enthusiastic volleyball player. Now she was a singer. Now there were expectations. All the thirty-somethings in town had heard her voice on Grey’s Anatomy, for shit’s sake. There was no turning back now… but she kind of had.

It was the wedding of some local high school sweethearts. She had been roped in by her friend Benji, one of the groomsmen who’d offered his services as ‘behind the scenes’ wedding photographer and hers as the wedding singer. She’d done her part, finished her set about an hour ago, providing her voice for the first dance. It had been an honour, she supposed. Most people settled for the DJ, they had asked for her to sing ‘their’ song live, the one that meant something to their love and the one they wanted to remember dancing to as a newly married couple for the rest of their lives.

Benji approached her as she leaned back against the bar, almost done with her second cosmopolitan but nowhere near finished her perusal of wedding guests on the dancefloor, or sat at the tables surrounding it.

“Are you gonna?” He reclined on his elbow next to her.

With her finger pressed absently to her chin, Preston angled her head towards him, not peeling her eyes from anything in particular. “Hm? Gonna what?”

Benji stepped in closer to her, she could feel his springy curls push against her cheek as he directed her gaze to where he must have assumed she had been looking already. Following his finger, she immediately found who he meant.

“Subtle.” Preston pushed Benji’s arm back to his side. It was hard to get a good look at the woman from the bar. Every now and again a dancing body would get in the way, or the light would hit her a certain way that would obscure her features. Preston couldn’t tell whether her hair was purple or blue. When the reds of the lights hit her, her hair shone almost metallic grey. It was a wonder Preston hadn’t noticed her first. Alas, Benji had. “Please,” she gestured with her glass, “by all means.”

“Oh, no no, no,” he immediately contradicted her, encouraging her to face him with a tug on her elbow. “Why do you think I called you?”

Preston complied, turning to lean forwards against the bar now, making sure the surface was dry where she folded her arms on the counter. “To hear me sing Sara Bareilles songs?”

“To be my wingman, man,” he corrected. His eyes shifted from Preston to the mystery-colored-hair woman and back. “Reel her in for me.”

Preston scrunched her face in response to the term, “Ew, she’s not a fish,” chancing a look over her shoulder. She couldn’t see what the woman was drinking, or even tell if she was with the people at her table or just occupying a chair. Nevertheless, she waved the bartender down and gestured at her near empty glass for another with a smile.

“Mm,” she conceded around her glass, finishing the last mouthful. “You obviously need the help. As if you don’t owe me enough already, Benjamin.” She smoothed down the fabric of her jumpsuit, making sure the tit-tape was still doing its job in keeping the edges of the low cut ‘V’ in place. The more modest dress she’d donned for the earlier part of the reception had been abandoned the moment she’d finished her set and the party was in full swing. “Alright,” she breathed, “The things I do for you.”

“Wait,” he caught her arm again, reaching up to fix something in her hair. She’d pinned it up since the performance, shoved three of the red roses from the centerpiece of the tables into her hair to make a head wreath. Matched her cheeks. “One of your flowers was coming out. There.”

“Aw,” she patted his cheek, “Might be hope for you yet. I’ll be back,” she gave herself a quick once over in the mirrored back wall of the bar, catching herself between the bottles and glasses. “Get a drink, stay there, look mysterious and aloof, but approachable.”

“You do know aloof literally means unapproachable, right?”

Preston waved him off over her shoulder to begin carefully meandering through the dancefloor towards the woman, expertly keeping her full glass from spilling. Once she was a few paces from her target, Preston glanced about to make sure she wouldn’t be interrupting something already in progress when she made her entrance, but she didn’t much care if she was.

Pulling up an empty chair into the space beside the woman, Preston first sat her glass on the table between them - close enough to the woman that it could be seen as an offering, but still within reach in case she didn’t want it, or in case one of the glasses of varying levels already on the table was hers.

“Hi,” Preston regarded the woman, injecting as much charm into her red-lipped smile as she could muster. Resting her elbow on the table and her chin in the palm of her hand, she inquired “Are you single? Are you single at this wedding? Wow,” She sat up straight, let the hand that was supporting her head fall to the table. “That totally sounded like I’m trying to sell you something. Hi,” she took a breath, offering her hand to the woman as she started over. “I’m Jesse Preston, and this is my attempt to wingman for my friend over at the bar there. I’m usually better at this."

[pressedonjess]

[pressedonjess]

if any song called for a wlw version

[pressedonjess]

she moves her, baby

[pressedonjess]

Locker room opening

#1

Every footfall in a steady beat against the treadmill sent a pulse up into Liv’s temples, one she’d been ignoring with varying success throughout the session. It was one of those days, she had them every so often. When she did, she would spend the day running and running and running herself into a migraine so she had ‘no choice’ but to forgo everything else she might have done that day to sleep it off instead. It was taking procrastination to a weird level.

Liv could get stuck in a bit of a rut when she had nothing to occupy herself with, or, nothing she wanted to occupy herself with. On a Monday with spring break in full swing, the garage shut and her schoolwork caught up with, the gym seemed like a way to successfully occupy her time while simultaneously keeping her from doing anything productive. Attempting to stave off the pounds of chocolate brownie she had consumed during her latest period was an added bonus. It beat laying around drinking beer and playing videogames like she was prone to do.

As the digital digits rolled up and over the 5K mark, Liv shut the treadmill down and kept pace with the slowing belt until she could stand still, lazily letting it deposit her off the end of machine with a thud of her old sneakers hitting the floor. Even in the excessively air-conditioned student gym it was always an urge resisted when Liv didn’t immediately dump the contents of her water bottle over her head. It wasn’t like anyone not already paying attention to her would notice anyway; she was a sweater, already slick with moisture.

It was only ever an urge resisted because Liv knew there was a much steadier stream of water – hot or cold – waiting to be showered over her after each workout. As someone who vastly preferred showers to baths, and who only had a tub in her small en-suite bathroom in her crappy six room student house share, Liv would readily admit that the main reason for her being such an avid gym-goer was the free 24/7 access to powerful unlimited showers via the locker rooms.

As she sluggishly made her way in that direction, past another row of treadmills and other cardio equipment currently in use, Liv barely paid any mind to the other gym goers as she pulled off her loose-fitting tank top, leaving her in a sports bra that was more for gym aesthetic than function. She was still dabbing away the moisture at her forehead and chest when she made it to the locker room, music instantly finding her ears when she opened the door.

The expected noise of voices to accompany the music didn’t reach her. It was sometimes the way, during the busier periods of term when the gym was packed, to enter the ladies locker room to the sound of music and chatter – customary with a group of girls hitting the gym as a pack, getting changed together. As Liv rounded the corner towards the three rows of lockers divided by benches, she found the opposite to be true.

Although the room was obviously in use by the other female gym-users she’d passed outside, there were no signs of anyone. No voices coming from the other rows of lockers, no movement either, no sounds of running water coming from the far side of the room where the showers were.

Sighing in mild annoyance – the kind that was largely unwarranted yet easily stirred in LP when she had a headache – Liv headed in the direction of her locker in the middle row, her mild annoyance swelling ever so slightly when the source of the music increased in volume the closer she got. It was coming from a locked locker (with the key still in), three down from hers. 112.

Any other time and it was probably a beat she could get down with, even if it was a little too pop and cheese for her taste. She wasn’t sure if it was her headache, or whether the metal locker was amplifying the tinny speakers of the phone or ipod, or whether it was just annoying, but the music seemed way too loud compared to the relative quiet of the locker room.

Dumping her shirt and bottle onto the bench, Liv pulled her own locker key from the pocket of her shorts, moving it about in her fingers while she rounded the locker at the end of the middle row to peek around and into the right. Nothing. It wasn’t much of a jingle with two keys on a ring, but Liv rattled them nonetheless, hoping to wordlessly announce her presence to the owner of the music and have them rushing to politely shut it off in the presence of another who might not share their tastes.

No such luck.

She backtracked past the center row and leaned around into the left. Empty, as she suspected.

Trudging back into the center row towards her own locker, Liv passed the offending locker as the song changed from what sounded like a rap song in a language she couldn’t understand (but recognized as maybe Japanese or Korean) to more of a dance/pop song where the voices singing were either female or very soft male voices. Liv resisted the urge to turn the key and switch the device off. Who left their key in their locker anyway? The person might as well have been asking for someone to mess with their shit. Even before they left their music on to broadcast to non-consenting gym members.

Another urge resisted, Liv took a deep breath and instead opened 115, grabbing her towel and the small waterproof drawstring gym bag with her change of clothes. As she headed towards the showers, she thought maybe by the time she’d showered, changed and returned, whoever’s music it was would return and shut it off. Or maybe her luck would change and the device would run out of juice, or maybe someone else would come in with less patience and poorer manners and turn it off for them both.

While she showered, unbelievably the music echoed through the locker room and into the shower with her, even being heard over the hot rushing water which would have otherwise helped with her head. The frown she could feel furrowing her brow hindered any progress the warm water may have made in soothing her headache, and by the time she was dry and changed and back in front of the offending locker Liv Parker was well and truly ticked off over well… nothing worth being annoyed over, really.  

Letting down her heavy bun of braids, Liv rubbed at her scalp while she wandered back towards the door to the locker rooms. Her newly shortened braids still fell just below her shoulders; their weight had been the main reason for the trim. The ends hung loosely in undone waves now, swaying harmlessly (they used to whip her if she turned sharply) against her chest while she leaned out of the door to check if anyone was coming.

For a girl who used to sling on the side among other things, Liv was conscious of the excessive amount of caution she was using in preparation for turning a key in a lock and pushing a button. Nevertheless she made her way back to 112, took one last look to the left and the right, then turned the key. The music was transitioning into another song when she found the phone, clicked the screen on and hit the pause button. Liv let out a long-exaggerated sigh into the silence that surrounded her, wishing she’d done this before the shower. She was somewhat tempted to go and enjoy a second more quiet and peaceful shower before heading home, but testing the weight of this stranger’s phone in her hand, Liv thought against it. There was always tomorrow.

So instead, Liv clicked the screen off, replaced the phone and relocked the locker, key in place as it was. She gathered her own things, pulled on her jacket and backpack, locked her locker and pocketed the key. As she headed towards the door, she paused as she passed the now silent locker. She half expected it to start playing music again, just as one last act of annoyance.

It didn’t. Liv turned on it anyway. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she opened the locker once again, grabbing the phone and clicking it on. The lock screen came to life, the song paused where she left it and an idea came to mind.

 It was spring break. She was annoyed and bored and headache-ridden – but there was no reason she couldn’t make light out of a situation that had taken place in the locker room physically, but primarily in her own head. The owner of the source of Liv’s irritation could at least be privy to what had gone on – to some extent. No one else would be.

Liv click and held the little camera icon in the bottom right of the lock screen, dragging it up until the front-facing camera showed her face on the display. She gave a sigh at the deep furrow still ever-present in her brow. Perry was probably right about those frown lines.

Watching her face in the display, Liv tried to work her frown into her best ‘really????’ expression, eyebrow cocked, mouth pulled into a left of center hint of a smile. She clicked ‘edit’, and added some text to go across the image just below her chin. She typed:

         ‘112. Idk how you managed to leave your music playing, but next time’

Muttering a “Yikes,” under her breath, she erased it, started again.

         ‘Dear 112. You left your loud music on. P.s key in locker = risky move. Love from your disgruntled moody neighborhood gym-goer, 117.’

Before she left, Liv looked over her picture, read and reread over her message once, twice, eventually biting the bullet and clicking ‘save’. She could have just left it there, but before she clicked the screen off, Liv hit ‘set as’ then ‘set as lock screen’. Just to send the message home, why not?

[pressedonjess]

Drabbele: Liv - figuring out her mind.

Journal entry?

There are multiple reasons why someone might look twice at me.

I am somewhat-unconventionally attractive – I know this. I am athletic, I have curves, though perhaps not in all the right places. My two eyes are deep and warm. My bone structure has been the openly-expressed envy of many a girl and my hair, however I wear it, always works for me.

As I read back over what I write, I imagine it sounds arrogant to someone reading who doesn’t know my mind. If acknowledging my truths makes me arrogant, I confess. Though I display myself, my body daily, I hide behind it.

There are multiple reasons why someone might look twice at me.

I suppose that my tattoos and piercings are two of them. Perhaps when people see them, all the ink and metal does is add to my ‘look’ or my ‘edge’. There is nothing pertaining to the fact that they represent, all thirty-nine of them, some of the darkest nights in my twenty-two years.

Though they litter my arms, chest, back, stomach, legs, hands, I could not point to one and tell you when it was done. I couldn’t provide a date, nor a deep meaningful reason behind any of the symbols. Each spatter and collection of dark inked lines and shapes were created on nights when I needed more than a tiny needle to pierce my skin. The only definite, is where.

Looking back, I was naïve, dramatic, needed an outlet. I was somewhat absurdly ‘poetic’ enough to want my self-inflicted marks to be more expressive, creative. Self-involved enough to prefer they looked pleasing to the eye. I had an apprentice tattoo artist for a best friend and a body to practice on, a hand to teach me how.  

There are multiple reasons why someone might look twice at me.

Are there thirty-nine? Are there two? There are one hundred and twenty-four reasons to accept the looks with my head held high. Until number forty.

[pressedonjess]

Drabble

Joey was someone who experienced emotion deeply, who experienced her feelings through every layer of her being.

it was an odd sensation to feel nothing at all. 

It was an aspect of her personality she always wished she could tone down on. Now she wanted some of it back, just a little. The parts that cried openly at sad movies in a theatre full of people, maybe even the parts which compelled her to express just what she was feeling in the moment, with no thought for the consequences. Katie often expressed how much she loved Joey’s candour, though not in those words.  

  “You’re snotting on me, Cooper.”     She huffed one time though not with disgust, bundling up a sobbing, post The Notebook Joey under her arm.    When Joey offered a sniffling apology, Katie interrupted, “S’all good, you keep me grounded. Give this cold hard exterior some nice underfloor heating.”

Katie liked to play the bitch, the stereotypical Queen B, but a play was all it was. Cold as she pretended to be, if Joey was Katie’s underfloor heating, Katie was Joey’s cosy fireplace. She was certain Katie had taken all of that warmth away with her when she left, to keep with her wherever she had gone, and Joey had been glad to let her take it at first. Katie hated Ellington for it’s cold. She loved Joey for how expressive she was in a town full of people who would sooner spring forth a lie than express a genuine emotion, to truly show themselves. In Katie’s eyes, at least.

Joey wished she could hate Katie for leaving, although there was definitely no shame in choosing to go. Katie was dead, the open casket was proof enough of that. Joey just refused to accept that Katie - Katie Marie Motherfucking McLaughlin – was responsible for her own death.

[pressedonjess]

From the moment Joey had risen to her feet those few minutes ago, upon waking and being awarded with that view of Natasha her first morning resolutions had consisted of a few pretty simple goals. Even though her first goal, mentally bullet-pointed as 'Get your hands on Natasha' had been checked off, Joey was still perhaps idealistically, unrealistically determined that today she'd follow through with the others.

Regardless of Natasha's less than favorable reaction to Jo in her short skirt yesterday (come on, she looked hot) and the fact she'd felt too hesitant last night, because well, Natasha seemed to love that movie and Joey had left it too late to make her move and had fallen asleep as usual; there had been no kissing, a distinct lack of kissing which in turn had riled up the stomach butterflies that had taken to flaring up whenever Natasha was close enough to kiss. Recently they'd taken to flaring up even when Natasha was nowhere near close enough.

But Jo could see Natasha now, and things deemed 'pushing your luck' and 'aiming too high too soon', so therefore dropped from the list, were reappearing on the list and subsequently being checked off at a rate that was as alarming as it was exhilarating.

Natasha's hands were somewhere on Joey's person, without Joey having put them there herself – check. Natasha had used those hands to pull Joey closer into her, an obviously natural action that Joey hadn't even thought to include... check. She couldn't really think at all. With her gaze angled up at an only slightly taller Natasha, all Joey could think to do was keep track of her list. She'd often found that in situations prone to flustering her, catching her off guard, it was conducive to maintaining focus that she try her best to keep her mind active. It wasn't proving as effective as usual, or at all.

Joey's mouth was dry from all the breaths she was pulling through it, breaths on which she could taste Natasha's – as weird as that was to note, but it was so true. And intoxicating, and in time with the fingers playing at her lower back, successfully proving to put a halt to Joey's ability to speak whatsoever.

She could only dumbly nod along with Natasha, half paying attention to what she was actually saying while Joey's hands lifted to secure themselves to Natasha's arms. That was the point at which Natasha decided to add yet another thing to Joey's checklist and immediately cross it off.

It was a chaste kiss, one that had Joey's brows shooting northwards, her grip tightening ever so slightly on Natasha's arms. It was one that was made up mostly of Natasha's tongue tracing Joey's lips, cutting off her breath; one teamed with the hands on her ass which instinctively encouraged Joey to stretch up onto her toes, angle herself forwards and into Natasha. She slid her hands up over Natasha's arms and around her shoulders, clasping her fingers around her right wrist at the back of Natasha's neck, beneath her curls.

Finally, she caught her breath right on the end of Natasha's sigh. Licking her lips Joey released a sigh of her own, closing her eyes and shaking her head to herself with a smile, bottom lip held in place with her teeth. She was close enough to feel the rise and fall of Natasha breathing against her own chest.

“Dressed,” Joey swallowed, her gaze landing on Natasha's lips then shooting up to meet her eyes. “Right,” she agreed, though she made no attempt to move. In fact, her next word came after a beat, counteracting herself wonderfully with a grinning “Nah.”

Her mental checklist had been filed aside, running instead like an app in the background of her mind. All the things she wanted to do with, to, Natasha were very much still in effect, Joey just wasn't flustered anymore. Sure, she was well aware of the warmth at her cheeks, the heat in her abdomen, between her legs, but it was more a fuel than a nagging impulse.

There was an item on her checklist that was very much overriding everything else. “I should kiss you,” she corrected, voicing it. One corner of Joey's mouth quirked into a smile while she considered Natasha's lips. The fingers she had closed around her own wrist began slowly inching further up her forearm, acting like a vice that was bringing them increasingly closer while Joey made her case.

“If you still want me to get dressed after, well, I'll know we'll have to work on my kissing.”

With that, Joey took the first strides in crossing off another of the points on her checklist. With the majority of her already leaning against Natasha, all Jo had to do was lean in some more. Angling her head somewhat, Joey settled on the balls of her feet, her slightly shorter stance all the more advantageous when it came to gently taking Natasha's bottom lip between her teeth, taking heed from Natasha with the inclusion of her tongue. Joey didn't have Natasha's patience, however, and in the next second her lips had laid claim to Natasha's with only the slightest hint of urgency and impatience.

Check.

The coarse words Joey uttered when she finally woke up implored Natasha otherwise than flattered. She had heard a hungover Joey speak before and considered the two similar. The fragmented croak of her voice catching on surprise sounded not unlike disgust and Natasha thought fairly so that it wasn’t foolish of her to think that Joey had woken up on the wrong side of the bed so to speak when her first course of action upon getting out was to immediately go brush her teeth.

That being said Joey had a tendency to venture to the sink sooner rather than later and so maybe it wasn’t a comment on her more feminine choice of outfit at all though she noticed through the reflection of her mirror that Joey was taking her time in staring at her legs anyway.

Taking the opportunity to put the stuff she needed in her bag while Joey was otherwise occupied, Natasha straightened up before she wandered back into the designated bedroom, her eyes gravitating back toward her legs once more as Natasha began fussing over the small amount of makeup she deigned appropriate for daily use.

By the time Joey had imposed herself just behind her, stating the dead pan obvious Natasha had swished her lip conditioner over her lips and supplied a quick, “yes,” providing the ghost of a smile, and a bemused but cool lift of her brows at Joey’s next comment. Joey’s chin hooked over her shoulder while her hands drifted to Natasha’s hips and then down her thighs, commenting that her skirt seemed like the kind of clothing piece she’d have thieved before.

Natasha rolled her eyes, turning as requested and imploring, “You didn’t know I had it.” Her lips quirked upwards and her hands settled over Joey’s hips in an unanticipated instinct. Natasha explained, “Got it the last time I was in New York,” while her fingers slipped beneath Joey’s shirt and slid across her skin, bringing them close enough together that their feet crowded the same space.

“You know Shay,” she stated casually. Natasha angled Joey a smile while her fingers teased along the waistband of Joey’s underwear. “Always trying to coerce me into a skirt.” At just about even with Joey’s slightly taller frame in her chosen high heeled boots Natasha took advantage of the boost by tilting her head just so, comfortably ducking to catch Joey’s lips with her own.

She could taste toothpaste when she traced her tongue against Joey’s mouth, coinciding the action with the smooth downward venture of her hands beneath Jo’s shorts. Immediately after licking Joey’s lips Natasha licked her own and breathed out a sigh. “You should get dressed,” she suggested with a put on casualness, letting her fingers squeeze gently. Natasha smiled, “I’ll wait.”

[pressedonjess]

In her first few waking moments, Joey deemed it not entirely implausible that she was in fact still dreaming. Her dreams had, after all, involved a decidedly more scantily clad than usual Natasha strutting around and marveling at Joey's dumbstruck teenage boy reactions far more than Jo imagined a real life Natasha would. She was far too cool to strut. Teasing Joey for her reactions, however, was definitely something Jo could see her BFF taking joy in.

Nevertheless, Joey had stayed in the horizontal position she assumed she'd fallen asleep in. The addition of covers pulled over her had Joey smiling fondly to herself around her yawn, while she took in Natasha. Sideways Natasha, looking from the back as though she belonged in some anime cartoon. Complete with bedroom mirror selfie-taking.

One hand rubbed against her temple while Joey pushed herself up into a sit, not once taking her eyes off Natasha, or more specifically her legs. Not unlike a confused puppy Joey tilted her head to the side, squinting and very nearly grunting an unintelligent 'Huh?' followed by 'What am I looking at here?'. Instead she opted for a croaky fragmented “Oh. My god.”

She knew exactly what she was looking at, it was just a matter of processing. A closer look was most definitely called for.

Before she stood up to give her hands a fighting chance at being where they wanted to be, Joey disentangled herself from the covers, her hands landing instead on her own bare thighs until a second later when it registered she'd forgone pajama pants. Good, she thought, fight fire with fire. Albeit a considerably weaker fire with bed head and morning breath.

Somewhat aware that Natasha could probably see everything Joey was doing in the mirror, Joey made a point to get slowly to her feet and stretch up far enough for her shirt to rise partway up her stomach before falling back into place while she righted her posture. Regardless of her itching hands it'd be the sink for Joey first and foremost. Who liked being (potentially) kissed with morning breath? Not Joey.

The fact she was on the move in the direction of her toothbrush and not Natasha didn't stop Joey from keeping her gaze plastered on that skirt, and the show of leg beneath it. Even between brushing her teeth and washing her face, Joey popped her head out from the bathroom to make sure she wasn't imagining things. There would still be the touch test to make sure.

Minty fresh and clean enough, Joey left her toothbrush and ambled towards Natasha, tilting her head yet again in consideration of that damned skirt. Her lips puckered in contemplation while Joey's hands played with and bunched up the fabric of her shirt.

“That,” she eventually said, coming to a standstill behind Natasha, “is a skirt.”

She'd left a gap of space between them, one she closed down with a step, partly to better see Natasha's reflection over her shoulder. Mostly to get her within reach.

“It's a damn nice skirt,” Joey remarked, gently pushing aside some curls to rest her chin atop Natasha's shoulder, enforcing her words with the hand she laid on Natasha's hip atop the waistband of the skirt. “Nice fabric,” she went on, her other hand joining the party and smoothing the fabric down Natasha's thigh, as far as the fabric went.

“How come I haven't stolen this before?” This she asked with quite the bemused smile, first directed at Natasha's reflection, then at the girl herself; Joey's right hand left Natasha's thigh to gently pull at her shoulder in an attempt to get the girl to challenge her gaze.

It hadn’t escaped Natasha’s notice that Joey was none too happy with her less than encouraging response to the short skirt. Of course Natasha knew what she was playing at. She knew Joey and the sudden show of skin seemed like the kind of move Joey would think to make when she wanted to up the ante a bit. That Natasha had replied in a teasing, friends first kind of way was a bit of a mislead.

She had noticed and oh boy did she appreciate the effort but giving in too soon set the precedent that she was easy and while she conceded a great deal Natasha knew she had to try and hold her own in their newly developed relationship. It wasn’t as if Natasha wasn’t equally game to up the stakes. She had thought of getting all up on that before Joey kissed her, was definitely thinking about it now that she could see so much leg, but rushing in was risky and at the risk of sounding totally lame, Natasha wasn’t sure she was ready to get too in over her head.

That wasn’t to say she didn’t have plans of her own. Being a movie buff had prompted Natasha a long time ago to approach her life a little differently. Adding a thematic perspective to things had a tendency to pan out favourably. A little mislead that was subsequently followed up with a reciprocation was a big pay off, so while she played it cool the rest of the day, a regular non-reading Jess Mariano cool, the next day she gave Joey a little of what she wanted.

As Natasha had expected Joey had fallen asleep during the movie, something she managed each time they watched and regularly resulted in Natasha pulling the covers over her. Last night she had done the same, venturing to her closet to pick out her own skirt for the next day after.

Truth be told Natasha wore skirts so rarely that if anything Joey’s reaction was probable to be likewise to what her own had been, teasing, perhaps mingled with a hint of confusion or disbelief. Nevertheless Natasha eagerly awaited it, had woken specifically early in order to orchestrate her plan in fact.

By the time Joey had woken Natasha had already teamed one of the skirts Shay had selected for her with a button down and sweater, hair loose and lightly curled at the ends. She looked and felt absurdly girlish, outrageously vying for Joey’s attention in such a way that would land her the suspicion of everyone else in the process. There was a measure of comfort to be found in the approval she knew Shay would provide her, however, even if she sought it by snapping a picture in her mirror (which subsequently she sent to Shay’s phone and uploaded to her tumblr, ever the paradox.)

[pressedonjess]

With an exaggerated 'Well I could have told you that' nod, Joey responded to Natasha's Daydream Nation suggestion with an agreeable hum. It was one of her favorites after all, Joey had probably fallen asleep through it at least five times.

In the following moments when finally her skirt was commented on, Joey heaved an equally exaggerated sigh, angling herself towards Natasha while they walked.

“One of the many things I admire about you, Dunst,” she breezed on, her gaze following Natasha's while her voice adopted a rather exasperatedly teasing tone. “Your super keen eye.”

Natasha had left the line open for Joey to feel embarrassed, but for some reason the bashfulness didn't come. Her short skirt had been caught out, but the intent behind it hadn't been picked up on and part of Joey just wanted to spell it out, even if the very idea made her feel dumb and weirdly needy. Joey already knew what she'd respond with. It went something along the lines of. 'It's an attempt at subliminal messaging, Natasha. The plan was to shorten my skirt a little bit every day, flash some more thigh, see how you'd react but you're quite obviously immune and/or oblivious to my sexuality that it's proven an exercise in futility anyway.' Perhaps she'd send it in an email later on, possibly during the movie while they were right next to one another. Less wordy.

“Daydream Nation, though,” Joey continued, doing well not to let herself get worked up over the flat-line reaction. “Sounds good to me, mostly for Kat Dennings and her girls though.”

They'd made it to the main building by then, the main hallway lined with lockers, intersections of narrower hallways running horizontally through it, branching off towards the different blocks, classrooms, sections of what was quite a large building for a small town high school.

Jo led Natasha in a dawdle towards their lockers, just two separating them. She had photocopied the strip of pictures from the photo booth and had them stuck onto the inside of her locker door, the newest additions to the already cluttered collection of photos with Katie, Jemma, the squad, mostly unenthusiastic snaps of Natasha. She smiled at the latest editions, glancing at them every so often while she unloaded her bag of books, keeping only the ones she needed for first class, along with her pencil case. 

"Those your only plans?"  Jo implored, glancing one last time at the photos before leaning against her locker to close it. "You'd be leaving yourself pretty open to any surprise attacks. Might wanna prepare. I don't think you are," Joey hinted, clarifying "Prepared, that is," with a challenging quirk of her brow to go with her playful smile. 

Natasha walked to school alone, light breeze tangling through her hair and her headphones pulled over her ears. By all accounts her solitary walks were the most opportune time for nagging worry to take centre stage but it was moments like these that provided Natasha a hint of reprieve. She thought back over the films she’d watched recently, her favoured soundtrack moments, and thought of her camera sitting untouched for the better part of four months atop her desk.

There was unorganized footage of Noelle on the flash drive, snatches of the recordings pulled frustrated and hastily crammed away in one of her drawers to be dutifully ignored. Snippets of Joey would be floating in amongst Noelle too. Because Joey was always around so she often ended up in the footage. Or maybe it was that Natasha simply filmed her all the time regardless.

Still it had been four months, four months of absolutely nothing. Natasha had only recently mustered the nerve to look in the direction of her camera now that things felt as if they were falling back into some sort of complacency. She had thought of angles and frames, considered the wide shot of the school grounds when she meandered through the gate, idling to the left.

It didn’t do to consider re-immersion when she was stuck elsewhere and she was thankfully pulled from the potential when she fished through her pocket to pull her phone out and read the text Joey had sent awhile back. The content lured a wry smile to her lips, a toss of her head. No sooner did she slip the phone back in her pocket was she faced with the sender itself, Joey wasting no time in crowding her space.

She had momentarily held back though Natasha stepped forward as Joey swept, briefly touching her lips against her cheek. Natasha glanced at her through her eyelashes and nodding a greeting toward her silently, accepting Joey’s arm slipping through hers familiarly. Without preamble Joey breezed right into suggestion, implying her availability.

Reciprocally Natasha commented, “Was thinking of watching Daydream Nation.” Fall in Ellington reminded her of Kat Dennings and her frilly ankle socks. She angled a glance to Joey to gauge a reaction though she were distracted by the jostle and swish of her coat, imploring the downward pull of her gaze.

Natasha smirked in bemusement. “Did you shoot up a couple of inches since I last saw you wear that skirt?’ She eyed Joey’s legs mindfully before allowing her line of sight to return to Joey and then the path before her. ”Looks shorter.”

[pressedonjess]

The increasingly cold weather was proving a disruptive force when it came to a girl getting her game on for school, or at least attempting to. Joey had left M's place (or home, as she'd recently began referring to it) that morning having cut off a far too inquisitive Katie over skype. They'd recently taken to skype calls, Katie deemed it practice for when she hit the modeling big time and she'd be jetting off places, meaning they'd barely see one another. She'd recently received a call back from some New York modeling agency or another and hadn't shut up about it since.

Once the blonde had finished prattling on about her latest crush on some basketball player or another, Katie's face had taken up the whole of the screen while she'd gasped, incredulous 'Is that eyeliner? And lipgloss?' Joey had rolled her eyes, her full frame in the shot while she'd moved around her room collecting her things for school. She had heard from the laptop speakers calls such as 'Joey Cooper that skirt is shorter than my attention span, what is going on?' and 'Have you considered leather? I have a jacket that would suit you and I'm sure whoever you're dolling yourself up for will appreciate-'. With a 'See you soon, K!' Joey had reached for her laptop, shutting it down along with her babbling Katie quota for the morning.

Jo pulled her trench more tightly around herself as she stepped onto campus, ignoring the fall cold while it nipped at slightly more of her thighs than usual. Katie probably knew Joey better than most people at school, and as she had admitted so herself, her attention span wasn't usually the sharpest when it came to most things unrelated to herself. As Joey ambled into more of a dawdle, she hoped Katie would be the only one to notice so instantly. Well, not the only one.

Natasha's text had Joey grinning to herself while she leaned back against their usual waiting spot, the wall just opposite the main entrance to school grounds. Wherever the sun made it to her through a gap in the clouds it was warm enough for Joey to let her coat fall open, to make her shins warm beneath her socks and her head too hot beneath the fluffy hat she usually reserved for the winter months.

It took a little longer than usual for her to think up the correct response for Natasha. A few had been typed up and erased, from a simple 'Duh' to 'Whenever I can', 'If you want me to', and 'I want to'. Finally she settled with 'I was planning on it', but in the end Natasha let her off the hook before she could hit send.

Joey reread both texts a few times, smiling to herself, finding herself glancing up to see if anyone happened to be watching her bite back the smile she aimed towards her phone in lieu of Natasha. Before, Joey had been largely confident that eight times out of ten, nine on a good day, she would have been able to predict Natasha's responses to certain things, be they ball park predictions a lot of the time, but they were still for the most part on point.

This flirting, their new flirting... It was kind of exciting. Totally exciting. The prospect of Joey having nary a clue of what Natasha was going to say or do next had Jo itching to find out. In place of one of the many options she had mulled over replying with, Joey had sent instead: Element of surprise? I like it.

She hadn't been waiting ten minutes when finally the gaze she had trained on the main entrance found Natasha. The inexplicable urge to run up to her, jump and land with her legs firmly planted around the girl's waist was almost overwhelming. Joey overcame it though, just. She could play it cool for once or fail miserably trying.

Grinning, Joey scooped her backpack up from the floor and slung it over her shoulder as she pushed off from the wall. She let her coat flow out behind her, hitting the backs of her knees while she ambled towards Natasha, meeting her in the middle with an easy, “Hey.”

Joey didn't even make an attempt to keep her eyes from wandering. Once they'd completed their circuit of Natasha's frame, came full circle and landed on her eyes, Joey leaned into Natasha's space to press her lips to her cheek, pretty close to Natasha's mouth not unlike the one that had fuelled their booth kiss.

“So,” Jo breezed on without preamble, turning on her heel to fall into step beside Natasha, comfortably linking their arms together.

Leaning against Natasha as they walked, Joey asked “What's on the agenda today?” hinting “well, aside from the obvious.” She smiled innocently over at Natasha, as though their moments ago text-exchange wasn't evidence enough to what she was referring. “I mean after school specifically. I'm up to date on homework, sibling-free and able to do whatever you'd like. Suggestions?” 

It was taking Natasha some time to adjust to the shift in hers and Joey’s relationship. While Joey had been reliably so her best friend (though Natasha had never explicitly used the term,) to have her become more was unusual. It felt to Natasha as if she were living a life alternate to her own reality yet running so closely parallel.

This Joey that flirted with her with all the intent that they had never used before, seemed a lot like the Joey she knew in her real life. Only this Joey was at liberty to kiss her, if she wanted, and Natasha hoped she wanted.

Natasha liked her, of that much she was certain, beyond her own resolution she was unsure. Were they testing waters? Were they dating? The many questions their new circumstances prompted Natasha lacked the desire to ask. She was sure their state would determine itself eventually and for that reason had been comfortable reserving her uncertainty for when she was alone.

Getting ready for school, knowing she would see Joey soon Natasha was no longer sure she could wait for their circumstances to reveal themselves.

The not knowing was making her neurotic. She had dressed for school twenty minutes ago and spent the time thereafter fussing, smoothing out her hair, coating her lips in conditioner, delicately lining her eyes, applying mascara. Of all things Natasha felt nervous.

Although she had been involved with someone before she’d have only loosely used the word girlfriend to classify Noelle’s relation to her. They had kept things casual, and up until the debacle at school, secret. Natasha hadn’t told anyone about Noelle, of which Noelle had been exceedingly understanding where even Natasha had not.

She supposed that because of that, the exclusivity of their relationship being only shared between the two of them, the pressure had been off. Natasha had never had to wonder about what they were to one another or what they were doing. They were just having fun, getting to know one another.

It was different with Joey, they were friends first. Changing things now called for a step up, a certain level of commitment. Natasha knew she couldn’t be quite so blasé about things. Relaxed? Yes. But there was no room for discard and indifference; she was already invested.

Truth be told she was excited too. The potential of things, if they were to go well was making Natasha more optimistic then she usually afforded herself to be. On a whim as she walked to school she had summoned enough courage (or foolishness) to message Joey asking are you going to kiss me again today? Though it had only taken her another couple of blocks to rescind the flirtatious query, adding on no, don’t answer that.

Joey was probably going to start wondering what she had started.

[pressedonjess]

For a moment there, Joey's mind was propelled into overdrive, grasping desperately at whichever excuse her mind could conjure that would somehow, miraculously explain away her words. Natasha had never been one to use her hers without necessity; most of the time Joey would deem even a one word response a good result, but even the response of 'oh' had been enough to send Joey's thoughts to all the more dramatic conclusions.

Diligently she'd been looking at the camera, her knee bouncing somewhat nervously, involuntarily, in a way Natasha was sure to have felt but Joey didn't care. The timer was down to one and before she could even think of a silly face to pull to at least attempt at easing the tension, Natasha made the decision for her. Joey had both felt her brows knit in confusion and her eyes widen in surprise at the feeling of Natasha's cool fingers at her neck, and her considerably warmer lips just left of Jo's own. That was kind of new. She didn't look to see if her expression had turned out as dumbstruck as it had felt. Jo was only slightly concerned about the warmth at her cheeks and whether intense blushing showed up in black and white.

Joey's gaze had snapped-to, in the direction Natasha had encouraged, her jaw slightly ajar while she paid close attention to Natasha's mouth as she spoke her three short revealing sentences.

Somewhere in her mind Joey registered the beginning of the last countdown. Her mind was busy replaying the things Natasha had just revealed, admitted to, concurred. Her gaze was too busy deciding where it wanted to land, it was currently a mini battle between Natasha's eyes and her lips.

At the 'four' of the countdown, Joey registered her grin and had shifted slightly so that she sat more across Natasha's lap, angling herself more towards Natasha than the camera. Her legs stuck out from the curtain and she didn't care. By 'three', she was licking her lips, the hand earlier on Natasha's stomach now rising to settle just lightly over her carotid. At 'two' Joey was leaning down to Natasha, the fingers at her neck finding their way behind her neck into her hairline, the better to coax Natasha's gaze up to meet Jo's.

The time between 'one' and the shutter sound seemed to slow down, to wait for Joey while she savored the look in Natasha's eyes; Jo was still grinning. Somewhere between 'one' and the shutter sound Joey had gone for it, her heart pounding while she accepted that this had most likely been inevitable and a long time coming.

She pressed her lips to Natasha's just as the shutter sound made a snap that seemed, to Joey's ears, louder than the others had been. She didn't jump like she normally might have. Instead she leaned into Natasha, her advantageous angle proving to be just that. While Joey's initial advance had been relatively quick in keeping with the countdown, her kiss was slow now, measured, savoring, imploring, and not at all practised but entirely easy and familiar in a way a first kiss probably shouldn't have been. It felt right.

The booth had asked them if they wanted to upload their shots to facebook three times by the time Joey thought to at least pull back a little. The hand at Natasha's neck dropped into Joey's lap, along with the arm that had been around Natasha's shoulders. There was only so much space she could give Natasha while on the girl's lap, in a tiny booth, particularly when all she wanted to do was kiss her again.

With a deep breath sucked in through the rather self-satisfied smile she sported, Joey spun to face the camera and leaned forward in Natasha's lap to select 'print' instead of 'print and upload'. Their friends could wait.

Chancing a glance over her shoulder at Natasha, Joey could feel her cheeks flood with warmth and the inevitable color to match.

“So...” she alluded, biting back her smile the moment she heard the machine print their pictures.

Scooping them up she leaned back into Natasha, arm back around her shoulders with the hand at the end of it offering Natasha one of the two strips of photos. She couldn't help but giggle at some of their faces, though it was the fourth picture that silenced her, held her focus.

“Dunst,” she went on, voice playfully solemn, nudging Natasha's side with her own and bring attention to their photos. A show of confidence was probably for the best, or at least called for. "Looks like you're into me."

Borderline teasing bravado had never been Joey's go-to before but it was all she had. 

It wasn’t that Joey was ineloquent. On the contrary, Natasha had read a number of her assignments over the years and if Joey knew anything it was how to structure an essay. It was just that when Joey expressed herself without the usual level of eloquence Natasha had come to expect she knew Joey was on the brink of saying something emotionally monumental and given their present track record it wasn’t hard to guess just what Joey had in mind for the subject when she began haphazardly phrasing herself.

The broken sentences were intercepted by countdowns and prompts and Natasha was caught off guard enough by Joey’s choice to venture into the subject now that when Joey placed her hand imploring against her stomach Natasha could tell the jolt that rocketed through her body was nowhere near as subtle as she’d have preferred.

It was perhaps out of politeness or her own single-mindedness that Joey had left the tremor uncommented on, continuing in her fragmented admissions and pausing only to pose for the picture, her lips pressed against Natasha’s forehead. Natasha wondered what her face looked like absently after she heard the camera shutter. She was vaguely aware of the knit in her brows, the frown puckering at her lips because she was worried of where Joey was going with this.

When Joey arrived at her conversational destination however it wasn’t relief exactly, that seized Natasha but an odd sense of calm. She had managed to splutter a quiet and underwhelming, “Oh,” in response, relaying the words Joey had used, and the actions that had accompanied them though she hadn’t been watching. Having known Joey for so long she could hear the smile in her voice, knew that she was approaching the subject brazenly and with only the faintest sheepishness.

Natasha swept forward, a hand curved around Joey’s neck then, to kiss her face for the next picture. Her mouth brushed a little closer to Joey’s lips than intended and once she heard the third snap she commented, “I was thinking about it.” She dropped her hand from Joey’s neck and angled her glance away. “Wanted you to… I don’t know.” Natasha worried her bottom lip between her teeth momentarily. “Just wanted, I guess.”

[pressedonjess]

Some of the many aspects of small town life, capable of inspiring both fondness and long-suffering sighs (depending on the resident) were the unfailing annual events. For Joey they always brought fondness and a whole lot of comfort. They held meaningful memories involving all of the people closest to her, and they could be counted on to continue doing so for as long as the people of Ellington wished it. Of course they'd keep wishing it, for the most part they were a traditional, sentimental bunch; they had, after all, been raising funds for the same building as long as Joey could remember.

Initially, Jo had figured the carnival would do well to distract her thoughts from the subject they'd been stuck on for the past however long it had been. Joey had stopped keeping track, if only in the hopes of moving forward. There was only so long a girl could regret a move chickened out of, before she had to start thinking about the next one. It was all Joey had been thinking about; what might have happened had she gone further, pushed beyond the waistband of Natasha's pajama pants, not to mention the boundaries of their relationship.

Natasha, looking cute, cool and distant as ever in her blue winter get-up gave nothing away. Joey thought that knowing Natasha as well as she did, she ought to have been able to decipher some of Natasha's expressions, maybe get a glimpse into whatever was going on in that mind of hers. Something was going on, and Joey wanted to know what it was, if it was what she hoped it was pertaining to, bad news for her or otherwise.

“Ooh!” She'd more or less squeaked, cutting off her own babbling once she'd spotted the familiar white and blue box of the photo booth. Joey's hand had already been nonchalantly tucked into the nook of Natasha's elbow while they ambled, and once she'd set her sights on the booth it had only taken a firmer grip and more meaningful direction to get a kind of agreeable Natasha to follow.

“We've grown,” she pointed out once they'd taken a seat, noting the way their thighs were a lot more compact in order to fit onto the seat in the booth, not to mention the frame on the screen.

Standing, Joey gestured for Natasha to scoot along into the middle of the frame. Noticing the screen, Joey gave an “Oh my god,” while she situated herself in Natasha's lap, her left arm circling around behind Natasha's shoulders while she leaned slightly forward to inspect the little blue F in the bottom of the screen. Apparently this years booth came with the 'upload to facebook' feature.

“They finally brought Ellington's photo booth beyond two thousand and five. Four? Whenever Facebook went live.”

There came the odd time when Joey was self-consciously aware of her rambling ways. Of course when she failed to notice, it most likely meant that her mind was off on a tangent, her mouth too busy trying to keep up with whatever her thoughts wanted to spout to take notice.

Now, however, on Natasha's lap Joey was painfully aware of it. Of what else she knew her mouth could be doing, of the warmth of having Natasha so close. Even with their layers, the left side of Joey's chest was pressed up to Natasha's and boy could she feel it.

Clearing her throat as if it were her mind, Jo paid attention to the tokens between Natasha's fingers and took them with a “Right, yeah.” After feeding them, and some of her own, into the appropriate slot, selecting the appropriate options on screen and waiting for the booth to catch up, Joey looked down to Natasha and quickly learned that the sight of having Natasha so close also spurred quite the sensation.

“I'd better get at least a half a smile this year,” Joey warned, injecting as much of her regular zeal into her voice as she could muster while the rest of her mind played in the gutter. When the booth voice announced the beginning of the first four second countdown, Joey directed her gaze back towards the screen and pulled the cheesiest grin she could for the shutter sound, speaking through her teeth “I mean it.”

When the voice told them to get ready for the next four second countdown, Joey pushed her beanie up and out of her eyes, turning back to look down at Natasha. Recalling the certain recurring thought of hers, Joey deemed now a good time as any to get it out there.

The countdown called 'Ready!' and Joey began, “The other night at the tree house-”

“Four!”

“- With all the movies I can't remember,”

“Three!”

“- And my hand,” she pressed her palm to Natasha's stomach again, just in case she'd forgotten.

“Two!”

“You remember,” Joey sighed then, loudly, pressing her lips to the side of Natasha's head just as the shutter sound annoyingly snapped for the second time. Two more to go.

While the updated yet still slow as ever machine was busy processing, Joey had time to keep on track with her line of speech. This time she wasn't going to bail.

“I wanted to...” She began, catching Natasha's eye for a second, her own gaze retreating back to the screen. “Uh, I don't really know exactly.” She watched the image of herself kissing Natasha's temple fade away into the number four, the start of the countdown into their penultimate picture. “I wanted to do something," she babbled, "I'm thinking the something is you,” she bit back a smile then, at how ridiculous she was sounding even to her own ears. “Badly,” she admitted. “But yeah," swallowed through her dry throat, shook her head, dumbly repeated "Yeah.”

Her eyes had been fixated on the numbers the entire time she'd made her confession, only now they weren't only counting down to their next picture.

For the weeks following after Natasha had been single minded. This wasn’t greatly unusual, her psychiatrist had bemoaned that unlike most people she scarcely ventured off her chosen topic. Where others would make systematic or obscure connections between one subject and another, revealing thought processes and recesses of truths Natasha had a tendency to stay put, fixated if she dared to muster the concentration – and scarcely did she bother.

Unless she were working on something her concentration was normally of the lesser variety, ranging somewhere between the bare minimum and vague interest. She reserved the vaster majority of her attention for films and Joey, though Joey had a tendency to talk a lot Natasha didn’t think she could truly be blamed if she occasionally spaced out on some of it. Most recently the occasional zoning out had become more of a regularity, though she was spacing out on Joey thinking about her she doubted the karmic balance would make Joey feel any better about her waning attention.

The fact that Natasha were loath to behave anything but normally after what had happened was another matter entirely. It wasn’t as if she were going to come out and explain that she was hung up on the motives behind Joey’s hand on her stomach at their last sleepover.

She had maintained her cool in the following days, keeping a lid on her constant pondering though she had plenty of questions. The held state of her tongue was due to a lack of conviction. Natasha wasn’t sure she wanted to ask because asking would only give her more to think about and truth be told she felt close enough to capacity as was.

For a touch that had lasted no more than a half minute it had sprung about quite the thought process. Natasha wondered if Joey had noticed the way her muscles contracted beneath her fingers or the way her breath had held. She’d wondered if the beating of her heart pounding in her ears had been as loud to Joey as it was to her and then naturally she had wondered what Joey had been doing, the downward drift of her hand was implicating enough but what had stopped her?

What had stopped her from going further? Or even what had encouraged her to go so far in the first place.

A single brush of Joey’s hand down her stomach and Natasha was reduced to the neurotic overthinking she had tried so ardently to avoid subscribing. She had never wanted to be the kind of girl that analysed the behaviors of the opposite sex (or in her case, the same) in order to decode what each finger twitch or sidelong glance might mean.

That, she supposed, she was reduced to such undertakings had been a fair indicator of her preference. Natasha had never worried or wondered about the way boys looked at her. They had always been easy to understand and disinteresting in the more appeasing ways. While contrarily girls made her curious, not only in the way they behaved but how they were so soft, from their hair to their lips, to their hands on your stomach.

Their voices too, even though Joey’s had a rather husky timbre that belonged on a blues singer or a twenties girl, registered softly in the back of Natasha’s mind. Today though she spoke with an insistence, a sense of urgency accompanying the tug Natasha felt at her elbow. Her hands were buried deep in the pockets of her jacket and she peered up from her feet to see what Joey was so eager about.

Relaying the half heard words she had been spouting Natasha managed to put two and two together succinctly, her face expressing her dawning understanding with a quiet disgruntlement. The blink and you’d miss it bunch of her nose came instinctively at the thought of having her picture taken. She was sure she was red in the face from the cold, and otherwise, very pale in her navy blue. Still Joey dragged her into the photobooth every year and every year she cared for the photos more than she ever expressed.

Dragging her heels was futile though she didn’t speed up her steps any, following after Joey’s sure strides and exuberance only to duck beneath the curtain after her. She dropped into the seat without force though Joey had wrestled her down a time or two and pulled a couple of tokens from her pocket, brandishing them wordlessly in Joey’s direction. 

[pressedonjess]

She hadn't been keeping track of how much time had passed since she'd made the move beneath the covers. Joey only knew that now, it seemed as though every move she made was propelled by a purpose that hadn't been there before. The 'now', the shift, when things had changed was yet another thing she couldn't put her finger on. Nevertheless Joey would do what she always did – go with her gut – and right now hers was doing that back flipping thing again.

The somersaulting butterflies didn't deter her like she thought they ought to. Instead, they seemed to egg her on, provide Joey with the fuel that appeared to go quite well with the scorching heat that was ever present beneath the sheets. Joey had to wonder if Natasha felt the warmth too, or if it was just her. No-nothing, rambling thoughts of shared body heat and insulation and convection ran through Joey's mind and unbelievably, she pushed them aside with no hassle.

Apparently, she had tunnel vision. Joey had no idea what she was going to do, or how she was going to do it, only that she had to do something or she'd combust, or something equally and internally dramatic.

Going with her gut, Joey rolled onto her side beneath the covers, facing Natasha who was on her back, conveniently so. The butterflies wanted Jo to hurry the heck up, rush in, but she was more cautious. For once she wasn't hesitant, just... slower, careful. With a deep breath, she went for it.

The two of them were close already, the bed wasn't huge, but as the palm of Joey's hand smoothed over the space of mattress between the two of them it felt as though it went on forever. Finally, Jo's hand found Natasha's hip and it stopped. Had she ever touched Natasha's hip before? Probably, absently. Maybe not.

Her hand backed away, using Natasha's hip as a reference point so it could rise and land gently, settling just above Natasha's belly button and just beneath her breastbone. She was doing it, whatever Joey was doing, she was doing it and she couldn't really breath all too well, but she was doing it. She had no idea what to do next, so she shuffled a little closer, barely jostling the mattress.

North or south was the next conundrum with Joey's hand sitting right in the middle and her lungs seeming to rattle in her chest. Joey knew there wouldn't be a bra in her way if she chose north, but was that too much too soon? She could just imagine Natasha jolting upright in bed, all 'what the fuck, Jo?' and as much as Jo could talk for the state, she couldn't foresee a scenario in which she could talk herself out of that.

South, there were pajama pants in her way, underwear in her way and by god did she want them out of the way but they were there, and that was probably for the best. She'd find her marbles before she found them, hopefully.

With another deep breath Joey's palm smoothed down, slowly, carefully, almost swerving to avoid Natasha's bellybutton until she remembered the piercing wasn't there anymore. She could feel Natasha breathing, thought she ought to say something, but what could she say? There wasn't really a need to talk herself out of this one until Natasha did something.

Finally Joey found fabric, and she stopped. Her lip hurt, so she released it, had the presence of mind to glance up at Natasha. Joey couldn't even remember where she'd been looking beforehand.

Quicker this time, Joey smoothed her hand back up and over to where she'd laid it down to begin with, just beneath Natasha's breastbone. She'd done it, whatever it was she'd just done and the panicking portion of Joey's brain decided it was time to put up the safety net.

Joey said Natasha's name, then, beginning to lean in towards her with the hand on Natasha's stomach steadying her approach. Her voice croaked a little, embarrassingly, cutting off the first two letters of Natasha's name.

Running her tongue over her lips, Joey leaned over, keeping her weight on the shoulder she was laying on, rather than Natasha's stomach. Pressing a kiss to Natasha's cheek, Joey said “G'night,” her mind mostly appeased with the fail-safe though the rest of her body didn't agree.

In protest, it wouldn't let her move. Her hand did, scorching of course, retreating to land somewhere in the cooler empty space of mattress between them, though the rest of Joey stayed where she was; on her side, frozen, eyes closed and doubting she'd accept sleep. 

If Joey were having even part of the internal struggle Natasha was experiencing then she concealed it with a practiced hand. That fact alone seemed reason enough to Natasha to believe that it was her own issue, in the singular. Perhaps, she mused, she would consider each of the females she knew in this light, or, more frightfully, she was genuinely attracted to Joey which for a number of reasons, wouldn’t do.

Never mind her brother’s long harbored crush on her, their long standing friendship was of the only ones Natasha really had. She couldn’t afford to blow it. 

That wasn’t to say that her mind wasn’t still occupying the space that wanted to do just that. Just blow it all away for a night of what would be surely clumsy but exciting over eager hands. 

Regardless of want overall Natasha’s common sense trumped all. As she approached the bed, where she had earlier laid out her pajama pants, Joey moved toward changing herself. Since things, namely her, had come out (not at all by choice, but what could be done about it) Natasha had made a point to ensure Joey’s comfort.

She had been accommodating in the aftermath, almost overwhelmingly so. The type to subscribe to constant reassurance to ensure there was no doubt in Natasha’s mind that whether she preferred the company of boys or girls, it made no difference. Joey had made it clear that while other people had an issue with it she was not among them.

That hadn’t stopped Natasha from enforcing measures though. First and foremost was that she absolutely did not watch Joey change.

Sure, they had been having sleepovers for years; she had seen Joey change a million times, maybe more. But that had been before and if Joey were secretly paying attention to that kind of thing now Natasha knew she’d prefer to be called out for not looking, than called out otherwise.

So as Joey stripped off layer after layer of her clothes Natasha diligently faced alternately, pulling on her pants and clambering into bed. Grace was unnecessary, Joey wasn’t looking at her and most certainly wasn’t interested anyway. 

She shuffled under her covers feeling wary of the challenge ahead. Would this be different now, too? Would she spend half the night considering how close they were, just how easily one of them could reach over until eventually she tapped out? Natasha hoped not. It seemed preferable to avoid that kind of complication of over thinking in her relationship with Joey.

It seemed also, a little promising when Joey appeared to settle on top of the covers but no sooner had Natasha relaxed did Joey readjust, shifting to slip under.

[pressedonjess]

[pressedonjess]

She'd been so ready, or as ready as she supposed anyone could be when faced with an impromptu first-time porn viewing session with their best friend. It was only once the play button had been hit that Joey registered she was the one to have pushed the situation, and that Natasha had almost certainly been joking when she'd made the suggestion in the first place.

She could have said no, though. Natasha could have playfully pushed Joey aside again, instead of resting her hands against a stomach that was limbering up to perform what felt at the time like a number of rather impressive back flips. At least to Joey, it had been some form of confirmation that she perhaps hadn't been alone in her want. Further reassurance came with the hot breath she'd felt go by her ear, and with the staggered heartbeat she hadn't been sure was solely hers. The rise and fall of Natasha's chest behind her and the fact it had kept pace with her own had at least been assurance enough that Joey hadn't been the only one to detect the change.

Presently, if Joey had a degree of confidence in anything whatsoever, it would be her inability to recall which movies they'd watched for the rest of the day. Her mind had been doing double time in the hopes of providing a distraction that wouldn't come, if anything it only made things worse. Or better.

She had been trying to put her finger on what exactly it had been about this certain situation that made it different to every other film they'd watched together. Sure, it was porn, but the other movies had involved sex scenes, all with varying intensities. When she managed to put her mind to it, it hadn't taken Joey long to deduce the difference, it was pretty obvious really. It was proving itself to be rather obnoxious; it was intent. She reckoned that they'd both known what the difference would be. Curiosity, discovery, crossing lines that if they really thought about it, had been fading for a long time and didn't seem to be there any more.

Of course Natasha appeared as cool as ever, granted Joey had always thought that there could be a storm going on behind those eyes at any given moment, and Joey wouldn't have the first clue. Nevertheless, clothing was being removed, just like that. Gone was the casual and thought-free way they'd always changed in front one another. Now Joey's skin was heating up beneath two layers in a way that was kind of unbearable while so much of Natasha was right there.

By the time Natasha had turned back around, Joey's mouth was dry and her breathing hadn't regulated any. The hot air in the wooden room had become so charged that Joey had been able to hear the unsteady note to her breaths as much as she'd felt them.

When her attention was brought to the forgotten pajama shirt in her lap, Joey wasn't confident that she trusted herself to speak. She managed a distracted “Hm?” a half assed show of her paying anything less than the full attention she'd been paying. Her slack jaw and dry mouth were contributing factors, but the main one was the bra Joey knew was about to appear.

“Uh, yeah,” Joey cleared her throat, licking her lips, moistening her mouth and managing to let her gaze drop to the shirt. “It'll- I'll be fine,” Joey managed, looking up in time to catch a wonderfully drawn out glimpse of Natasha's abdomen. She might have laughed aloud then had she been able to do anything other than stare; Joey most certainly was not, nor was she going to be, fine. In fact, Jo was pretty certain she wanted to do things to Natasha she wasn't entirely certain she knew how to do. She wanted to try, so very bad.

The moisture collecting in the dip between her collar bones, if not the increasingly familiar charged silence, served as reminders of the fact that it was Joey's turn now. It was about time she tested out her legs and whether or not she still had the use of them, she supposed.

Tightening the tie in her hair in preparation for hair static, Joey rose to her feet, pulling her way out of her hoodie in the process. Being on her feet meant being that bit closer to Natasha, an idea that was proving dangerous enough to envision, never mind act out.

The bag she'd brought from the door to the foot of the bed during an earlier movie intermission was her excuse to see if she could breathe any easier with a foot more space between the two of them. Her back was to Natasha. The air may have felt a little cooler, but when dropping her hoodie carelessly on top of her bag Joey drew herself resigned to the fact that she was very much in the thick of it now, Natasha-free breathing space wouldn't help her. Natasha was all she wanted to breath in.

Regardless, with a breath she tried to remind herself that the two of them had changed in front of one another a thousand times.

When the next thing to be pulled over her head and dropped was her t-shirt, she reminded herself. With a deeper breath, and while reaching behind to add her bra to the pile, Joey tried her hardest to recount the amount of times she'd done exactly this, finding little comfort in the fact that she couldn't possibly count.

With Natasha's pajama shirt on, Joey turned back towards the bed, using the frame to lean securely against while she pushed and pulled her way out of her skinnies. Now didn't feel like the time to be clumsy Joey.

Though she felt unusually exposed in her underwear and pajama shirt, Joey wasted no time in hopping onto the bed the same way she always would. Her initial bounce propelled her far enough up the mattress that she only had to shuffle some ways to get onto her back atop the covers, her head finding a pillow. She was way too hot, and Joey didn't see things cooling down any time soon.

At Joey’s impatient prompt Natasha had conceded to doing just that. The onslaught of apprehension that had arisen in doing such a thing, of all things, with Joey, had barely petered out throughout the event. There was an intimacy to it that felt too charged, too personal for them to be enduring together. With Joey’s hands on her knees, the occasional head tilt or hum coming from one of them ensured a measure of awkwardness Natasha was sure.

Because they were each only beginning to realize how strange what they were doing was and they absolutely couldn’t talk about it Natasha couldn’t accurately determine if the awkwardness between them was charged or if she were simply imagining it. It was overly optimistic to think that as her own hands had thought to roam from where they’d settled against Joey’s stomach (for lack of a more comfortable place to go) Joey’s might have also.

Natasha hadn’t yet decided if that instinct had been circumstantially inclusive or because watching dirty things with sweet Joey Cooper between her legs had prompted the more depraved of her impulses to kick in. The more she thought about it the more Natasha could see the appeal in corrupting Joey, and the more she reminded herself that she had absolutely no right. Not to mention the fact that Joey was always veering just on the right side of surprise when it came to the more salacious, and it would undoubtedly turn out that she would be the one doing the corrupting and not the other way around.

Sex was too fickle and damning a thing to just go about having it with someone she had known for as long as she’d known Joey. Still, that didn’t stop the implicit want she felt coursing through her mind and lapping at her fingertips.

Spending the rest of the afternoon and remaining night hours doing decidedly safer things hadn’t lessened things either, though Natasha had hoped they would. Her thoughts were awry and inappropriate and during each shift or movement in Joey’s body Natasha could feel her head twisting the gesture into a sordid tale of possibility.

Getting to an acceptably late hour laced with drowsiness and the occasional yawn had felt relieving when sleep was determined as the next course of action. She was safe in her sleep, unable to overthink a poorly decided choice and the hormone driven want that had sprung from it. Joey, surely, felt similarly. Or not at all similarly, only lingering traces of discomfort over how unusual it felt between them because as tactile as their relationship often seemed thoughtless touches after the fact didn’t feel quite so thoughtless.

Natasha wasn’t sure if Joey had made a point not to touch her too much but if she had then Natasha was grateful. She felt so frustrated she was almost certain she’d burst into flames if Joey’s hands went anywhere close to anywhere their relationship didn’t generally consider fair game.

Still as she’d pulled a matching set of pajamas out, keeping the bottoms for herself and passing the shirt to Joey, Natasha found herself taking advantage of the situation in a way she wouldn’t have had she not spent the afternoon thinking about things that could happen between her and Joey, even if they shouldn’t. Was it normal to occasionally want to have sex with your friends? To find out what it was like? Or just to find out if they were attracted to you in that way?

Despite any futile efforts on the contrary Natasha couldn’t hinder her curiosity and proceeded to strip her pants off without haste. By and large she believed there was no sexy way to take off pants. It was a clumsy venture at the best of times but the slower slip of her fingers, the dip in her spine while she bent over to collect her tights, was surely nicer to look at than the messy push of fabric over her legs, and that was only if Joey was looking.

Diligently Natasha had refrained from checking. It was one thing to on a whim decide to bait your otherwise straight friend, another to make eye contact while doing it. Looking over at Joey would be like admitting she was undressing at angles advantageous to Joey’s viewing pleasure, if she was in fact watching, and did in fact enjoy what she saw, and Natasha wasn’t at all ready to make a monumental declaration like that.

On the contrary she played it off casually, turning to face Joey as her hands reached around her back and for the clasp in her bra. She didn’t wear one often though she was glad to have one on today. Any potential give away signs on her situation had been strictly restricted to her pants and unless Joey were psychic she were none the wiser to what had been going on there.

Snapping the clasp undone with a soft grunt after a few failed slips Natasha queried, “You gonna be warm enough with just the shirt?” She reached up the sleeves of her shirt to pull the straps over her shoulders and off her arms, looking at Joey with a curious arch to her brows when her hand reached back under her shirt and between her breasts to pull the bra off. If her shirt had ridden up a little in the process, well, it wasn’t intentional.