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the-modern-typewriter · 7 months ago

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PLEASEEEEE POST THE F/F SNIPPET I AM FROTHING AT THE MOUTH. I loved the last one you posted so when you said there's MORE? HELLO?

“Nope.” Astra flicked the light switch on the wall again, once, twice. “It’s definitely dead.” She moved over to the window, drawing the sweeping curtain aside and peering down the rain-sodden street. “Looks like the power’s gone out for everyone.”

It was supposed to be her birthday. Who wanted to have a power-cut on their birthday? She couldn’t even cook the dinner she had planned. Of course, she hadn’t told anyone it was her birthday, it felt too much like a demand for gifts or attention, but she’d been looking forward to at least doing something special.

She turned.

Lucille hummed an acknowledgement, continuing to light candles, flitting from one to another. They made the room feel strangely more like a temple than before. Lucille was one of those impressively and sometimes terrifyingly uncluttered people; her attic flat was all smooth white lines and high ceilings. It always felt far more peaceful than Astra’s place, which tended to be sprawled through with half-finished easels, half-drunk cups of tea and stacks of marking at any given stage.

Astra bit her lip. She felt rather useless simply standing there staring, even if Lucille had already done most of the candles anyway, so asking if she could help felt a bit pointless. It was all clearly in hand. She cleared her throat.

Lucille shifted to face her at the sound and held her last match up to mouth, illuminating a flash of soft pink lips, before she blew the flame out. She shook the matchstick, trailing smoke as she set it aside, but held onto the candle in her other hand. The wax was a deep purple, the flame the same flickering gold as all the rest.

“Have you ever experimented with wax before?” Lucille asked, oh so casually.

Astra released a breath, startled by the sudden question, and shook her head. Her pulse shot up. “No,” she said. “But we talked about it.”

She very much doubted Lucille had forgotten that, judging by the look in her eyes.

They had met a little under a year ago, when Astra had wandered into one of Lucille’s exhibitions after work. Astra’s works were all traditional fine art paintings – when she had time anymore anyway – but Lucille’s had been shown in photographs that day.

“People get funny about me exhibiting actual people,” Lucille had said, coming to a stop next to her. “It’s a shame, really. A photograph doesn’t quite capture the same effect, you know?”

Lucille’s work had, technically, been painting also. It was just that she had painted on people’s skin rather than a canvas.

One man stood with his chest brushed skeletal, each line of his bones and ribs lit glossy white again. His heart was the only burst of colour. Another piece was a woman whose mastectomy scars had been painted over with blooming flowers, new growth, life. Another of the photographs still had been a portrait of a woman with half of her face perfectly made up with make-up, and the other half painted to be shattering like glass. Ruined.

“It’s quite an effect, though,” Astra had replied. Her heart had hammered wildly in her heart, too big, entranced in a way she hadn’t felt in a while. “I can only imagine what the real thing is like.”

Lucille had smiled, head tipping to examine her, up and down. She watched Lucille back. She was a delicate sort of woman, cute and unthreatening. Astra had felt Lucille's attention slide through her veins like something molten all the same.

“I’d love to do you,” Lucille said, then. “Sometime. If you’re free.”

That was how it had started.

Astra didn’t consider herself the most lovely of models – she spent too many hours teaching art in classrooms and stealing chocolate digestives from the staffroom to be much of a work of art herself – but the paintbrush sweeping over her skin had been soothing.

She’d been painted by Lucille a number of times since then, small things; a bluebird on her shoulder, an ocean up to her ankle, a ring of fingertip-shaped bruises meticulously crafted around her wrists. She was always reluctant to wash the paint off, but she’d spent a long time staring at the bruises in particular.

That was how it had evolved.

“I think you’ll like wax,” Lucille continued. “Though, as ever, you are free to say no at any time.”

Astra walked across the candlelit room and sat down in the middle of the floor in response. She raised her brows at Lucille. It wasn’t what they’d had planned for the evening, before the blackout, but she certainly wasn’t objecting to the idea.

Lucille laughed, softly, under her breath. She filled a bowl of water in the sink before coming over too, sitting down. She set the candle and the bowl to the left and studied Astra for a beat. Her attention had turned laser focused again, in the way that always made Astra’s breath catch.

Lucille was the kind of woman who suited candlelight, moonlight; anything less defined than the bright fluorescent strips of artificial bulbs. They made her seem otherworldly. Astra watched her consider, something sliding honeyed in the pit of her belly.

“Off,” Lucille murmured.

Astra pulled her dress over her head with practiced ease and tossed it a safe distance away, somewhere without fire, before wriggling out of her tights. A shiver ran down her spine as the cooler air hit her bare skin. A second shiver followed as Lucille reached out, warm fingers brushing up her calf, before moving atop her knee to press and guide her legs away from where they hunched instinctively against her chest. Astra rested them flat stretched in front of her.

Lucille leaned in to press a kiss to her lips, deep and calming, before she pulled back.

“You look beautiful,” she whispered. “Stop worrying. I’ll do your front, so you can see the finished work.”

Astra huffed and smiled, waving a hand for Lucille to go ahead.

She watched as Lucille reached for the candle. She watched as Lucille held it over her legs with a steady hand, letting her see the first time. The purple wax pooled and dropped, splattering a starburst against Astra’s thigh.

“Oh, fuck.” It blurted out of her in a shocked astonishment.

If the paint brush had always had a lulling feeling, gentle and cold, then the heat of the wax was almost like being hit. It was the same flare of heat that quickly cooled. It was, all in all, impossible to focus on anything else.

“Okay?” Lucille asked.

Astra managed a nod and managed not to giggle, breathlessly. The world apart from them suddenly felt very far away.

“Good.” Lucille reached out with her free hand, and then in one swift movement grabbed Astra by the throat and pressed her to lay down on the floor. “Don’t move,” she whispered, against Astra’s ear, before nipping her neck. “You’ll be in trouble if you make me start over.”

Astra bit her lip for an entirely different reason than awkwardness, face flushing. She didn’t move.

The candlelight painted the room awash in shades of ochre, amber, and red; softening and sharpening corners, transforming the world she knew into new definitions. The light rippled and danced across the ceiling.

The second droplet of wax landed on her stomach, then the third, the fourth, the fifth and a small sound escaped her throat. She couldn’t brace for it. It was too unpredictable, never exactly the same heat twice. Some stung, some burned, some were the same gentle warmth as a kiss. She squeezed her eyes shut, her breathing turning ragged.

Lucille shifted more candles closer, more shades for her palette.

It took every inch of will power Astra had to hold still as the colour splashed over her; purples and blues and bright yellows and whites. She curled her fingers into fists, digging her nails into her palms. She thought she might scream – not from pain, exactly, but because of the way every burning wax-stroke made her more aware of her body than before. More sensitive.

Lucille stopped when she started whimpering, at a particularly hot droplet just below her waist. Her hips twitched. Needing to move. Needing to deal with it somehow. Lucille leaned down to blow cool air on the spot, another soft laugh on her lips.

Astra released another, helpless, curse word in response.

“If you can’t restrain yourself, dear, I’ll have to do it for you.” Lucille’s voice was teasing. “You’re being very distracting.”

“ME!?” Astra yelped.

Lucille smothered a grin, then started again.

She pieced her work together like the fragments of a mosaic and with time the heat turned to white noise, wax pattering like bright rain upon the windows of Astra’s mind. It was not, exactly, soothing, by any means and yet something about it was. It was overwhelming. It didn’t allow for wandering minds or ordinary troubles. She was a work of art, nothing more, nothing less. All she had to do, in the grand scheme of everything, was hold still. It was easy to get lost in the feeling.

Every so often, Lucille would pause, but time lost all meaning. It came in drips and drops, rather than anything so plebeian as seconds or minutes.

Finally, Lucille set the candles down completely.

Astra’s head swam, and the world felt softer, and she didn’t think it was just candlelight.

Lucille leaned back over her, arms braced on either side of Astra’s head, making sure not to dislodge the wax. Her blonde hair tickled Astra’s cheek.

“Good girl. Okay?” she asked.

Astra made a noise of agreement because words felt like far too much effort. She grinned up at Lucille to make it clear. Lucille smiled back. She leaned down to press another kiss to Astra’s mouth.

“Do you want to see?”

Astra gave her a look, because yes, of course she wanted to see.

Lucille’s smile turned to a grin again too and she helped Astra to sit up, slowly, so that she could get a good look at what she had become.

Astra’s eyes widened, her gaze roaming over the purples and blues and bright yellows and whites. Lucille had made her a constellation, a galaxy, a twinkling array of stars picked out upon the deepest swirls of night.

“Ooh.” Astra’s breath left her in a long, amazed, sigh. “Wow.”

She was, without question, fucking beautiful.

She would go to an entire gallery filled with pictures like that, 3D across the curves of her body; painstaking, blot by pretty blot.

She met Lucille’s gaze.

“Happy birthday,” Lucille said.

She’d known.

“I didn’t get through enough candles, technically,” Lucille continued, “but you can still make a wish. If you like.”

Astra laughed, and dragged her into yet another kiss, another, and another still. She kissed her breathless. She could think of nothing to wish for, in that moment, except what she already had.

The lights above them flickered, before switching back on as the power outage came to an end. Astra blinked against the brightness.

Lucille gave the nape of her neck a reassuring squeeze and pulled back. “Get cleaned up,” she said. “I’ll get dinner on.”

Astra caught her hand, and squeezed it back.

“Thank you,” she replied.

Lucille tossed her a wink, bringing Astra's hand up to her lips and pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

She was never going to feel the same lighting candles on a power-cut again.

#hides face #i am weak to the whims of the people #okay last one #back to your regularly scheduled enemies to lovers and heroes to villains and all that 'what you expect from tmt' jazz #f/f #lesbian

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