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wndaswife · 11 months ago

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genesis, awakening | thérèse raquin & fem!reader

Moving to Paris didn't present Thérèse with the life she initially expected until a young woman visits the haberdashery.

Word count: 12 107

Tags: smut, fluff, masturbation, cunnilingus, face-riding, so much on symbolism and their many thematic components, can you tell i just finished reading a certain hunger, and also, i hope you will enjoy this as much as i do: power bottom!thérèse raquin | MINORS DNI

In her earlier years, Thérèse thought quite a bit about her father. She wondered when he would come back and what he was doing and when he’d send his next letter. She imagined that all she had yet to hear from him were stories he would tell her in a near future when he would come back to collect her as he had promised, away from Madame and Camille and Vernon’s dull French countryside.

Once Thérèse turned fourteen, things began to change for her; Madame gave her more responsibility, more demanding homeschooling, and she, by Madame’s account, was now a blossoming young woman.

Initially, thoughts of Thérèse’s father remained, for she worried that once she grew out of childhood, her relationship with her father would inevitably differ immensely from when he had last seen her. After all, he had only ever known Thérèse as a child, and now that she no longer was, what made her any different from any other passing woman?

When Thérèse was given the letter from Madame notifying the family that her father had passed, it had been a few months at that point since she last thought of her father, and it had only been in briefly passing curiosity.

Over the years, Thérèse’s responsibilities became plentiful, and she became increasingly preoccupied with the concerns of her day-to-day life with Camille and Madame. She hardly had any time for herself — even her very thoughts became overtaken with the weight dumped onto her shoulders for her, and her only, to carry for the household.

Her life, initially only indebted towards Camille and Madame for giving her a home, soon became theirs, similar to property.

Last summer, when Thérèse was told that she, Camille, and Madame would be moving to Paris, she imagined countless different paths her life could take from then on, divulging from the monotonous countryside life she’d always been accustomed to.

In her mind, there were thousands of different ways the move to Paris could have gone for her. For example, she imagined meeting friends and making them on her own, travelling — if the shop’s earnings became bountiful enough — and, in general, feeling like her life was truly her own, and that she didn’t have to spend the rest of her life paying anyone back for the fact that Madame had taken her in when her father could no longer care for her.

But nothing seemed to change aside from the fact that, atop of still being expected to tend to Madame’s every whim and care for Camille as both a wife and a second doting mother, Thérèse was now expected to help run the haberdashery.

Although it was both her and Madame that took part in running it, Madame was often dozing off or partaking in her own interests around their tiny, dingy Parisian home, often only coming down from the arcade when a shop patron had an inquiry or a request that Thérèse wasn’t sure how to approach on her own. But as Thérèse’s experience with running the business became increasingly comprehensive overtime, there was little to no reason for Madame to come and assist her at all.

It wasn’t necessarily that Thérèse needed Madame’s help, but rather that she didn’t want to have to run a business at all.

In fact, Thérèse didn’t want to live the life she was living to begin with; running a haberdashery in the suffocating little alleyway of Passage du Pont Neuf was never anything she had imagined for herself once plans were made to move to Paris.

Thérèse wished desperately for someone to blame for the way things had turned out, for if there wasn’t anyone to take the blame for what had happened, then it would become clear that the way things were was the way things were always going to be. If there was no causal reason for the life she was living, then she’d have no choice but to accept the fact that the way her life was playing out was simply its natural course.

Initially, Thérèse had even tried to blame herself for how things were, for it was her endless fantasising and romanticising that led her to be as disappointed as she ended up becoming. But even in blaming herself, there had to be some inevitable form of correction she would’ve had to uptake, and that would mean putting away her fantasies and dreams.

But without even the imagination that things could be better — and in Thérèse’s wildest fantasies, her life would not only be better, but it’d be a life that she truly enjoyed living — then she’d have nothing else but to accept the way things were. She feared that perhaps she’d grow into Madame, or even duller than she, if that were possible.

Thérèse’s life had no defining landmark, no deviating paths but the one she was placed on the moment she began living with Camille and Madame.

Since last summer, and it was spring now, Thérèse felt entirely trapped; she felt that she didn’t belong to herself, that nothing she did would ever escape the future that was inevitably laid out for her, and that not even her thoughts could wander very far from the reality of her life.

Even the very reaches of language couldn’t very well belong to her either as she wasn’t sure if ‘miserable’ was a way to describe her life, nor ‘dull’ or ‘boring,’ for how could her life be any of those things if it had never been anything different?

She felt no different from a walking corpse, similar to the brief amount of time a chicken has before the rest of its body hits the ground even after its been decapitated, turned into an infinite stretch into the future.

But she could not even pretend under any veil, no matter how heavy nor opaque, that she wasn’t alive. Perhaps things would’ve been easier on her if she could at least fool herself into believing that everything she did was of another’s will — anyone else’s but her own — but she felt it in the boundless pit in her chest, the weight in her stomach, the gravity pulling at her limbs each time she arose in the morning. She knew she was alive and that she did what she did willingly because she felt it.

It’d be easier, at least, if her actions were not her own; being a coward and a slave to a life she hated was perhaps her heaviest burden.

With the peak of the spring, the normally dingy suffocating Passage du Pont Neuf was especially constricting; the tiny passageway was overcome by the heat of the sun and the humidity from the past rains, the mossy faded rooftop panelings and stone walls shining dull and damp and mean and unappealing.

Just after lunchtime, when the sun reached its peak and stretched up above the tall buildings of the alley, Thérèse could finally lay her eyes on something worth looking at through the windows of the haberdashery, sitting at the shop’s counter with François endlessly dozing in her lap.

With her chin in the palm of her hands and her fingers gently stroking the soft white fur of the quietly purring cat, Thérèse let herself bask in the warmth of the afternoon sun. She closed her eyes and let her breathing grow steady, with every second resembling more and more the mild-mannered cat sleeping in her lap.

Surrounded by the silence of the still shop and the faint purring from François, it felt as if Thérèse’s body was gently thrumming from the outside in, the stagnant hum of her surroundings blanketing her body with the gentle heat of the sun.

The chime of the bell by the door didn’t wake her from her conscious dozing — it was the approaching steps towards the counter that made Thérèse finally open her eyes. She blinked away the sunlight and quickly repositioned herself so she looked presentable.

Even François stirred awake at her body’s sudden jolt, and he lept from her lap and, with great yawning stretches of his lithe white body, headed off beyond the curtain that divided the shop from the arcade’s staircase.

“I am sorry to have woken you and your cat,” the customer apologised in a way that seemed genuine.

Thérèse turned her attention away from the escaping François to the customer in front of her, only for her eyes to meet the most beautiful thing she’d ever had the fortune to lay her eyes on — in fact, perhaps the more beautiful thing that’s ever found itself in Passage Pont du Neuf.

Her cheeks immediately flushed and she looked down at the counter, initially stuttering before she finally spoke an: “It’s alright. I shouldn’t have been dozing.”

She searched, panicked, for things to say, and when her eyes ran over the small box of multicoloured buttons on the shelf under the counter, Thérèse remembered that she was running a shop — not simply talking with a beautiful stranger she met while doing errands.

She raised her head and looked down at your arms, avoiding gazing upon your face lest she grow even more distracted, and saw that you were holding a generously-sized box in your arms, your forearms upturned with your fingers wrapped along its front-facing edge.

At the sight of the way Thérèse eyed the box, you carefully placed the case on the counter and pulled up the top to reveal a carefully-folded dress inside. “For a special occasion,” you said, ��I want to have some of this dress fixed up since it has been moved around quite a bit since last spring until I stored it away to bring it here.”

Thérèse watched as you took the dress out of the box carefully; your delicate fingers tucked themselves under the folded dress, slowly unfolding it so you could lay it on the counter and display it out flat for her. Her eyes flickered up to your face occasionally, hoping that with each glance of your face, she could slowly build a detailed mental image of what you looked like without having to stare like she desperately wished she could.

She thought you were pretty, and that it was cruel that a face like yours had to suffer the backdrop of Passage Du Pont Neuf that lay beyond the confines of the constricting haberdashery.

Suddenly Thérèse felt embarrassed, and she wondered if she herself gave off a impression alike to the rest of the old shop and the narrow passageway of damp moss and cracked stone walls and rushing crowds who wanted to do everything but spend another moment along the path they took only as a shortcut to get to where they needed to be — somewhere doubtlessly eternally more fascinating than where Thérèse currently was and would always remain.

“I was curious if I might possibly get a replacement for the lace trim,” you said and ran your finger along the underside of the trim that trailed down the sides of four pale yellow buttons that led down from the dress’ collar.

When you looked up from the dress to look at Thérèse curiously, she realised she had inadvertently begun staring at you in the way that she had kept trying to avoid while you were speaking earlier, though she couldn’t recall exactly when she started staring. She swallowed and adjusted herself then looked down at the dress to examine the lace you had pointed out.

She felt her cheeks begin to flush as her face was in the general direction of where the dress was, and from her inability to meet your eyes, it almost seemed like you were looking directly at her instead of the lace.

Absently, she started playing with the loose strands of her hair that had escaped from its braid in an attempt to both hide some of her face and adjust her appearance.

“If you are looking to maintain the original design, I do not believe we have this exact kind of lace here,” Thérèse thought aloud then leaned to the side to pull out a box of carefully-stored lace trims of different patterns, shades, and material. They were organised so one would be able to see each pattern while they were set down. “The lace on your dress seems Italian in design, and we only have one kind of lace from Italy, but even this looks too far off from what your dress has.” She pointed to the one at the left corner of the box and your eyes followed curiously.

“The only kind we have with a pattern like yours is this one,” Thérèse pointed to the different kind of lace to the right, “though it is far more dense and visibly not as expensive.”

The familiar language of the haberdasher made Thérèse forget for a moment that she was standing in front of you — whomever you were, since she had yet to officially know — until she looked back up for a response and found herself facing you again. She straightened her back and rubbed the pads of her fingers under the smooth underside of the shop’s counter, feeling anxious for a reason she could not explicate even to herself.

There was a girl who used to frequent the Seine one summer when Thérèse was younger. The girl visited the Seine regularly that summer for her father worked as a fisherman somewhere along the river’s currents and was positioned there for the season.

When they first met, and it had been during one of the many occasions Thérèse took time for herself in the afternoon after Madame’s homeschooling lessons, a young Thérèse understood her fascination for the girl around her age to be due solely because of the girl’s tales about her father — a father she travelled with, a father who was ever present in her life.

Perhaps this might have been true at the time, for it was hours talking about her fisherman father that the two spent meeting up in the afternoons after Thérèse’s lessons and while the other girl’s father was too occupied for the girl to have any business loitering around fish and their fishermen.

But even after Thérèse saw her for the very last time, since her father was working by the Seine only for the summer, it was not her tales of her father that Thérèse thought of. In fact, Thérèse thought frequently about the girl — and the girl only.

She thought of her hair and how it looked the perfect shade of the fireplace in Madame’s living room when it was set aflame, but only when the fire first leaps from the wood at its initial ignition, for the shade of her hair ignited something similar within Thérèse that could simply not analogise properly should it be compared to a fire that had long been burning.

She thought of the colour of her eyes similar to the depths of the Seine that Thérèse could only see from the land’s surface and would never find herself coming close enough in order to make out a shade with her own eyes; the Seine, though beautiful, was far too dangerous to approach with proximity at that age. Though after having stared into such a vibrant shade of deep blue for nearly all of that summer, any curiosity she previously had of the Seine's deepest colours were sated and even paled in comparison to the mere recollection of her.

That was the last Thérèse had ever had her thoughts so preoccupied with another in that way until now. There were passing strangers, of course, that Thérèse glanced at more than once when she could and thought of for a few moments afterwards, and even other shop patrons that Thérèse found rather charming.

But she could not stop looking at you, and she felt silly for she did not even know your name, and you likely did not care to know hers.

“Oh,” you said, leaning over the box of lace and taking a closer look. There were some frayed parts of the lace that could not be fixed due to its original intricate stitching, and some parts that had become simply lost through the months of being moved around for space conservation and whatnot; it had to be completely redone with new lace.

Your fingernail grazed against your bottom lip and you confessed, “I am not quite sure which would look the best as a replacement. To be honest, I do not know very much about fabrics and stitching and all such things ladies ought to know.”

That made Thérèse smile, inexplicably. She thought you were endearing, and for some strange reason, your mention that you were put to the same constricting standards of being a lady in Paris as she was developed within Thérèse a certain fondness for you.

“I understand,” she told you with a friendly smile. “I could restitch the new lace for you. This dress seems rather important to you, so I would understand if you rather a stranger didn’t touch it in your place.”

You lit up at the suggestion and questioned, “Truly? I wouldn’t want to tax you with such labour.”

Thérèse promised, “It would truly be no trouble at all.”

“How much more will it cost?” you inquired and began sorting through the francs you brought.

In quick protest, Thérèse reached over the counter and brushed her fingers against your knuckles before leaning back and keeping to herself as quickly as she had reached out to touch you. “It’s alright.”

You looked at her and Thérèse felt panic rise within her, recalling that the two of you were indeed strangers, and she had no reason to do such a favour for you. She didn’t meet your eyes long enough to decipher the way in which you regarded her, for she’d soon die of humiliation if you regarded her as someone strange.

“It calls for a very simple kind of stitching, and we have been trying to gain a reputation as a tailory as well as a haberdashery; the stitching at the moment is included in the price of the lace,” Thérèse explained. “However I completely understand if you would rather a more officiated shop did the stitching for you, or even if you preferred to do it yourself.”

To Thérèse’s relief, you replied, “Ah, I see. In that case, since it isn’t too laborious for you, it would be fine.”

Thérèse was surprised — pleasantly, even — that you were so considerate of her time and effort.

If all this for a stranger, how much more for your lovers?

The thought made her wobble.

“May I have your name?” Thérèse asked and opened a small notebook in which all the shop’s patrons were sorted and organised by their purchases. When you gave her your name, she found herself overcome with a feeling of euphoria writing each letter of it, asking for the exact spelling, and having your name stored so that you could not stray very far from the shop that you likely wouldn’t ever visit again once she was finished with your dress.

It was painfully unprofessional, what Thérèse did next, telling you that you could pick up your dress next week due to the other tailoring that had to be done before yours, which was to say that there was none, actually, since she had earlier lied about the haberdashery wanting to take up more tailoring orders. She did not want to have to see you for the last time so soon, so she withheld it for another week.

She was in an endless cycle of unprofessionalism, it seemed, for next, she told you that when you picked up your order next week, you ought to ask for Thérèse. There were two reasons she told you that — firstly, because it was unlikely that Madame would be working by the counter, there was no reason for you to need to know her name if it was she herself that was going to tend to you either way, and she wanted desperately for you to know her name as she did yours, and secondly, because if there was a chance that it was Madame out front instead of her, your asking for her would leave no room for Thérèse missing the chance to see you again.

But all her lack of professionalism’s accompanied guilt was soon disregarded when you asked, “You are Thérèse?”

Something crept up Thérèse’s spine when you said her name and made her shiver. She nodded. “Yes.”

“I like that name very much. It’s very pretty,” you told her and smiled politely. “I will remember to ask for you.”

Thérèse could almost faint.

Over the week, Thérèse did her very best carefully restitching the lace trim for you with the kind you chose from the box. She wanted to add something else to the design in the attitude of some form of a gift or something similar, but she had to maintain the dress’ original integrity and she knew when to not cross any boundaries.

After all, she was still a haberdasher, and women’s fashion was seen with high regard in Paris — this she was quick to learn once moving from Vernon to the city — so she knew quite well how to handle clothing.

When she was finished restitching the trim, she held it up by the top of its sleeves so she could see it upright and flat. She imagined you wearing it, and though she didn’t know very much about you, she imagined she got to know a little bit just by looking at the dress and knowing it was the kind and the style you would like to wear for an occasion that was special.

It was a shame you were only a visitor of the shop; she would have enjoyed getting to a woman with such exquisite taste in clothing. She still would have enjoyed getting to know you, frankly, even if you had horrendous taste in clothing.

A week after you had visited the shop, Thérèse was waiting for your arrival with your dress carefully folded back into the box you had given it to her in. She decided to give you a small extra roll of the lace you chose as a gift in case you wanted to make any more alterations or in case you simply just liked it and wanted it for more of your garments.

This time, when you arrived, Thérèse was completely awake and could not even think of dozing off, not even if she tried, for she’d been thinking of seeing you since the moment she awoke in the morning.

After reassuring Madame that she could take the day off to rest, as she would have either way, Thérèse had the whole shop to herself.

When you entered the shop, you were carrying a small basket concealed by a patterned cloth. Upon approaching Thérèse, you laid the basket onto the counter and greeted her. She was curious about the basket, and even François seemed to be too, for he rose from his place along the wall and sniffed at the basket.

“François,” Thérèse warned and swatted him away quickly, to which he lept off from the counter and walked off. “I apologise,” she said.

“It’s quite alright,” you reassured with a smile that Thérèse thought was just painfully charming. You reached over to the basket and uncovered it, revealing a small sealed jar of what looked to be strawberry or cherry jam, freshly sliced bread, and another jar of a medley of different berries. “This is for you — as a thank you for doing the restitching.”

Out of all the ways Thérèse fantasised about this afternoon with you — and she did, quite a bit — this was certainly not one of the ways. “Oh, please, no, it’s okay,” she told you. “Please, don’t. I was glad to do the stitching for you.”

“You are glad to do your own labour,” you slid the basket closer to her, “and I am glad to do mine.”

Thérèse searched your expression for any hint that you might be convinced to change your mind, but you seemed stubborn. She thought this was endearing too. She liked your kind heart and how eager you seemed.

Then she looked down at the basket and sorted through it with her eyes. “This must have cost you a large sum,” she said, looking back up at you with a shy smile.

“Not at all,” you answered. You thought she looked cute when she was finally accepting your gift, the guise of the shopkeeper now pulled back to reveal the shy young woman behind it. You wondered what she was thinking. “My family owns farmland near Vernon, and I visited this past weekend and thought to bring you some of their jams and berries, but the bread I did get fresh from a bakery this morning.”

“Your family lives near Vernon?” Thérèse asked, her interest piqued. She had always regarded Vernon with such disdain and hoped that she might never have to visit again, but associating such a place with someone like you made her regard it differently. She never imagined that anything but her own resented memories could reside there. “My family and I moved from there in the summer.”

“Do you miss it very much?”

The question was almost comedic, but Thérèse thought it would be impolite to laugh. “Quite the opposite,” she answered. “I was glad to move from Vernon, but honestly, I haven’t had much chance to explore Paris aside from my walks in the mornings.”

“I understand,” you told her sympathetically. Thérèse melted. “I enjoy visiting, but I can hardly sit still in the countryside for more than a weekend.”

Before Thérèse could panic about what to say next to fill any impending silence, you said, “But you are interested in the city? Exploring more of it?”

“Exceedingly.”

“If you have a day off from the shop, I could show you around Paris,” you offered.

Thérèse felt her face flush with warmth. “Sh-Show me around?” she repeated.

The soft pink of Thérèse’s cheeks made you smile.

You said, “If you don’t mind, then I would love to.”

Straightening and playing with the sleeves of her dress, Thérèse answered, “I wouldn’t mind at all. I would love to accompany you. Thank you.”

A brief moment of silence did indeed end up passing between the two of you, but instead, filled with a kind of warmth that made Thérèse both elated and weak in the knees. She felt that she had made her first friend in Paris, and more importantly, it seemed that you wanted to spend time with her too.

You were grateful for Thérèse’s restitching and especially grateful for the additional lace she gave you, and you discussed which day the two of you would be able to spend time together.

Thérèse was most flexible to whichever day was best for you, for she knew Madame would be thrilled that she had made a friend — not that she would ever get the chance to meet you for a while, for she wanted you to be privy to only her for as long as possible.

Next Tuesday was mutually decided upon.

Alike to Thérèse’s fascination with you — although you didn’t yet know how mutual the feeling was, of course — you weren’t quite sure what had come over you when you offered to show her around Paris. Initially, you told yourself it was because she used to be a resident of Vernon, and familial sentimentality led you towards the urge to show her around Paris.

But your thoughts about Thérèse, when you had them, and you often did, were very rarely if ever related to Vernon or any form of familial sentimentality.

Thérèse and how she took form in your mind started with her hair, dark brown and smooth, and immediately after came her skin, seemingly translucent in its delicate shade of porcelain cream and tinted with the pink of her flushing cheeks when you were lucky enough to see her grow bashful at your words. Then came her voice and its girlish elegant placidity, then her eyes and her lips, the slope of her nose and the curve of her chin.

You wondered, especially, how she was beyond the confines of the haberdashery and beyond the walls of Passage du Pont Neuf. Inexplicably, though it could be easily attributed to knowing her no further than within the environment of the shop, it was difficult for you to imagine Thérèse beyond the gloomy shadows of the narrow alleyway or from beyond the counter of the shop.

That was not to say anything about who she was as a person — after all, how could you presently have anything substantial to say about who she was — but rather the kinds of circumstances she was under. In the curious glints of her eyes and the lithe cat-like movements of her elegantly-moving body as if trained to maintain such composure laid something in slumber, larger than the stillness of Passage du Pont Neuf.

Over the week until the upcoming Tuesday, you steadily began to feel guilty for how often you were thinking of Thérèse, for your scrutiny of her made it seem to you that you were subconsciously treating her as a subject of some kind of personal research endeavour — but this could not be further from the truth. Truly, Thérèse interested you, and it was merely your disturbance with your own fascination in her that began manifesting into guilt in order to avoid coming to the realisation that you simply could not stop thinking about her.

One could almost label your thoughts of Thérèse as perverse, and you did not want to be labelled a predator, even by your own moral judgement.

When Tuesday arrived, Madame agreed to run the shop while Thérèse had plans elsewhere, feeling pleased, frankly, that Thérèse had finally made what she described to be a friend.

Madame knew Thérèse to be gloomy and hollow of passion and vivacity, which was not so much a concern to Madame Raquin and it was an irritant, particularly because her niece’s sombre nature often became much too suffocating for the small confines of the shop. It was only when she scolded Thérèse for her lack of spirit in front of the shop’s patrons that she at least began making efforts towards behaving as typical girls of her age did. At the very least, she was willing to wed Camille and willing to run the haberdashery, albeit because Thérèse had very little personal reservations of her own as to have any opinion about anything at all, or at least, if she did have opinions, they weren’t ever pressing enough to escape the confines of the often critically-judgemental mind that Madame knew laid beyond the line of her motionless pale pink lips.

You had it in your plans, though you did not disclose this to Thérèse in the spirit of keeping it a surprise for her, to visit Jardin des Plantes. It was your personal favourite spot to go when you wrote and when you needed time for yourself, and when you first moved to Paris many years ago, it was also the first place you felt yourself drawn to.

In some ways, taking Thérèse there was both an invitation into how you understood Paris in its essence and an invitation into your own personal world; there was more to your interactions with Thérèse than a tourist to a newcomer, for there was a personal investment too, a personal interest in bringing yourself closer to her.

The two of you walked your way towards the botanical garden, taking the path you normally would to and from your place of work. To you, it was typical, but for Thérèse, it was as if she had only moved from Vernon the day prior. You could not believe how little of Paris she had seen, and selfishly, perhaps, you were glad and proud that it was you who was introducing her to what she had long been missing.

Conversation with Thérèse was endless.

You spoke of your occupation as a writer for a periodical, which Thérèse found fascinating and immediately wanted to know more about — What do you write about? Do you like it? How did you find yourself coming into a career of writing? Were you always a writer? — your childhood in Vernon and the rest of your years in Paris, your tastes in literature, and countless other things that Thérèse’s piqued interest never strayed far from.

You asked about Thérèse too, of course, about her arranged marriage to her cousin Camille, her aunt, her opinions on Paris, her own childhood and years in Vernon before moving away, and most interestingly to you, her ambitions and dreams.

She was an ambitious person, with hopes for herself and her future that stretched far beyond the reaches of her family or Passage du Pont Neuf. Perhaps laid to rest years prior, such hopes seemed to reawaken at the taste of freedom now that she had distance from all that she wished to move onwards from. But where she would go if she had achieved such separation, Thérèse did not know, and so she believed she could only ever dream and never accomplish.

During your walk, you discovered a vividness about Thérèse, a brilliance, an ignition of light that had its sights set far from the shadows of Passage du Pont Neuf and the Raquin family’s haberdashery. But in the gardens, there was fragility and sensitivity, and you found yourself equating her to the flowers she was immediately absorbed by.

Thérèse was gentle with the flowers and plants, careful not to disturb them from their natural paths of growth, even as she walked among them, yet all the while incredibly fascinated and captivated by them. She had never before seen so many different kinds of flowers of such vivid colours and appearances, much less the incredibly long vines that reached up the arches of the bridges over the water and up the brick walls of some buildings and such well-designed shrubs as if carved by hand.

In the Vernon, where Thérèse had seen the most plants, there was no such colour nor plant so alive, so grateful to be in the environment in which it grew.

At a particular plant, Thérèse paused and looked at it, leaning down slightly and surveying it.

“What is this?” she asked you, pointing a hesitant finger at the pink and green plant who, in its centre, was budding and growing healthy white flowers. “This one with the teeth.”

You came to her side and Thérèse straightened. When she did, she brushed your shoulder, and in response, she stepped closer so the length of her arm was pressed against yours.

To the green and pink plant and its blossoming flowers, you answered, “Dionaea muscipula — the Venus Flytrap.”

The name sounded silly to Thérèse, and she laughed.

“It traps flies?” she asked.

“Yes,” you answered, equally as humoured. With a hand on her lower back, you encouraged her to step forward so you could demonstrate something. Blushing, Thérèse nearly missed your demonstration for how you touched her body and how she stared at your face. You started speaking again, and she forced herself to look at the plant.

Gently as to not bend the plant where it should not be, you laid a steady finger between what Thérèse described as an open mouth with its needle-shaped teeth.

“See how it closes — slowly,” you said.

“It closes slowly,” Thérèse noted, “yet its prey is still devoured?”

You removed your finger from the plant’s trap and watched as it very steadily returned to its original open-mouthed position. “I believe the pink colour of the trap is appealing for the flies, and that it emits a certain scent that is alike to the nectar the fly seeks for nutrition. The fly believes — perhaps, anyway, I am not sure — that it is eating from the plant. The plant is slow and attractive enough to keep it from straying. The ‘teeth’ prevent its escape once it's closed enough.”

After a silent moment of thought and perhaps of admiration of the fascinating plant, Thérèse asked, “And its name, after that of Venus?”

“If I were to make a guess as to why it was named after Venus, I might be inclined to say that it is due to its appearance,” you supposed. “The pink of the inside and the white flowers, especially. It’s a beautiful plant.”

Beauty, yes — Thérèse conceded. But Venus, in her representation, was not only significant in her symbolic nature of beauty and femininity, but also desire, sex, and prosperity.

And Thérèse could not help but find that the alluring shape of the flytrap represented that of which was particularly vulvar.

When Thérèse arrived back home just before dinner, Madame and Camille were set to leave to celebrate a promotion Camille had just gotten within his place of employment. Their plans involved dinner with several of Camille’s work acquaintances and some of Madame’s friends that often came to Thursday’s dominoes games.

Her presence at this celebration had evidently not been anticipated nor planned, for both Madame and Camille seemed hesitant in what to do once she arrived slightly earlier than either of them anticipated.

Fortunately for them — and for Thérèse, too — she was in no mood to do anything but stay at home, and to this, they graciously permitted without protest.

That evening, Thérèse was restless, but a sort of restlessness that was distinct from what could typically be attributed to night terrors. From the restlessness that derived from night terrors, she would tie herself up in the mess of her bedsheets as she tossed and turned, desperate for slumber to overtake her. In trying to shut her eyes, shadows would become foes and an unsettling fear would dig its way into her stomach, paralysing her.

But tonight was different — and exceptionally so.

There was restlessness, indeed, and a gnawing in her stomach was surely present, and a paralysis-like possession certainly overcame her, but what made this restless evening different from that of what was haunted by night terrors was that she was not overcome by any sort of fright.

In fact, it was quite the opposite.

There was a thrumming in her stomach, a simmering of the blood in her veins, a greedy possession that overcame her with urgency in the likeness of paralysis, but it was not quite that either — it was not paralysis for Thérèse did not lack any ability to move. Rather, the subtle tension within the base of her stomach and the pumping of her heart and its accompanying adrenaline made Thérèse want to do everything but stay still.

But what was she to do aside from lay still and fall asleep, she did not know.

There was something awakening from a long slumber deep within her, having been so deeply-shrouded that Thérèse herself was little acquainted with it.

By God, what was this urgency that her body kept clawing towards? It was as if her very skin was an obstacle for this awakening beast, and it called for her to act on it, to move in accordance to its will.

In closing her eyes, shutting them tightly, it was not imaginary shadow foes that came to the forefront of her mind, but you. It was your face she imagined; it was your voice; it was your scent; it was your fingers.

Her body took the form of another, and it was your perfume she smelled in her hair when she lolled her head to the side. It was your hands that pulled her nightgown up to pool around her hips, and your fingers that dipped into the slope beyond that of her smooth lower belly. Her thoughts were comprehended through the sound of your voice, telling her to release, release, release.

The tight wet velvet embrace that greeted Thérèse’s fingers when she entered herself, she understood as her own, but it was your touch that drove her to pleasure. The quickening speed of her fingers and her other hand and its wandering, a soft palm beneath the linen of her nightgown and up the expanse of her stomach, pads of her fingers pressing into the dips of her ribs and further, further until she groped her breast so harsh it made her whimper — it was your doing, and this ferocious beast that had been scratching at her skin from the inside, howling to escape, was you.

When Thérèse reached her peak and laid a sweaty panting mess atop her bed in the bedroom lit dimly by a flittering singular candlelight on the bedside table, she returned to herself.

In the silence of her bedroom, still feeling the gentle tremors of her harsh, desperate release, Thérèse realised that what she had done was of her own doing. Where else were you but where you currently were, in your own bedroom, perhaps, dreaming and slumbering, apart from her.

There was no one else but her, and it was she who was the awoken, the desperate, the howls for recognition.

She was this predatory beast, predating on herself.

In spite of having reached her hilt of pleasure, Thérèse felt herself aching for more, and it does no good to cannibalise oneself.

She needed prey.

She would take you whole.

In the morning, Thérèse wrote to you through the post you had provided her in the case that she might have wanted to reach you when you could not see each other. During the stroll back to Passage du Pont Neuf, you both expressed an interest in seeing each other again, but unfortunately, you’d be busy with the attendance and planning of your brother’s wedding for several days after that Tuesday. So she wrote in hopes that the two of you could plan the next time you might be able to see one another.

She wrote to you about the Thursday evening games of dominoes and sometimes cards, and that she would like to have you in attendance next week, for she knew you could not attend this week’s upcoming game.

The impatient days tending to the shop and awaiting next week’s evening game were painfully dull and ridden with anxiety-like compulsions. The awakening in Thérèse had arisen much too far from its place of previous resting and could not be put to bed, and it made her pace and pace, nitpick at her clothing, twirl her hair around, organise and reorganise the shop’s inventory.

Even Madame had realised, though she was assuaged and convinced when Thérèse simply told her that with the upcoming summer and the gradually-warming weather, she had begun to feel a tinge of spryness bubble from within her as if it were out from its hibernation.

The excuse, Thérèse thought, was rather humorous, for it was not some low bubbling of gently arising energy that had begun to form within her, but a vicious hunger so demanding and starved that it was painful.

Her beating desire, however, was alleviated for a day or two once she received your correspondence from the post, writing back in your ever so beautiful and delicate handwriting that you would indeed be able to attend next Thursday’s game — and also that you greatly anticipated seeing her again.

Thérèse read over your letter again and again as if taking each word into her mouth and chewing it, running her tongue over every written letter and swing of your ink pen against the coarse page. But it was not enough — it was not you.

So she waited, pacing, organising and reorganising, brooding over her lack of you, until next Thursday came.

When Thursday came, you arrived, and punctually so.

Coincidentally, you had met with one of Madame’s friends on the way to the game — never mind how you came to realise the two of you were headed to the same place for this was not of pressing concern for Thérèse — and so it was Madame who first greeted you at the door.

From the kitchen beyond the dining room, Thérèse could hear you introducing yourself to Madame.

It was a bit of a shame, for Thérèse had wanted to keep you to herself for as long as she could, but if she wanted you within the short span of time in which her dwindling patience would not allow for any further waiting, she had to make some sacrifice.

As the guests filed into the dining room, Thérèse came forth from the kitchen with a serving platter of a pot of tea and several cups, and your eyes caught onto hers. She could tell that you had been curiously awaiting her arrival, wondering where it was that she had gone while you took a seat at the table.

Your curiosity remained even as she left once more to fetch another serving plate of danishes and tarts, and remained, still, when she returned; you meant to ask why she was not taking a seat at the table.

One of the guests had forgotten to stow away their hat along with their light coat at the entry hall, and Thérèse obediently took it for him and left the dining room to the entryway to hang the man’s hat up.

You excused yourself and followed her.

“Thérèse,” you called after her, your voice hushed within the silence apart from the busy dining room.

She hung the hat from the coat hanger and turned to you. “Y/N,” she greeted and smiled. “How was your brother’s wedding?”

“A bore,” you answered immediately. Then you added quickly, “Though, I am happy for him, indeed. Many blessings to the wedded couple.”

Amused by your crassness, Thérèse’s smile widened and she nodded, “Indeed. Blessings.”

“I was hoping you might play alongside me tonight,” you confessed. “I’m no good at dominoes.”

Thérèse told you, “I do not play.”

“Why not?”

She didn’t believe she had an actual answer, frankly. Why didn’t she play? She sat to the side, primarily, by the window at the corner of the dining room, ready to serve food and drinks and open the window when requested.

At her silence, you did away with your original question and then said instead, “You invited me to play a game in which you are not participating? I wished to spend time with you tonight.”

Your frustration excited Thérèse. She felt her hunger spike.

“Disappointed?” she asked.

“Rather.”

Your frustration was not that of which could be compared to critical judgement, but a state of vulnerability, an expression of a lack — a lack of her.

Thérèse could sympathise with your dissatisfaction.

“I apologise. I invited you with the sole intention of seeing you, and I dearly wanted to, but I did not consider that past seeing you, we could do nothing else.” She stepped closer. “After the game, perhaps we might go for a walk. I’ve yet to see where you live.”

The corners of your lips pulled into a delicate smile and Thérèse swooned. “Then another walk it is,” you affirmed.

Thérèse was unsure what had been going through her mind when she imagined that her hunger would be sated, or at least partially, once she was finally able to see you again. She sat in the corner of the dining room, sometimes getting up to serve drinks and desserts, passing by you often and meeting your eyes even more frequently.

But she was driven mad sitting apart from you and doing nothing but watching, nothing but seeing.

In salivation, the object of nutrition is its trigger, an anticipation that one is soon going to digest what is desired. Of course, there are further, more scientific reasons as to why the salivation begins; the brain takes part, primarily, with its neurotransmitters and its comprehension of hunger and craving. But none of it would occur without a subject in mind — the subject to devour, the subject to prey on.

And while watching you socialise and laugh and look over to her occasionally, watching your lips wrap around the rim of your teacup or swallow a bite of the tart from your plate, Thérèse was nearly drooling.

Her fingers, unless she was imagining it, were trembling ever so slightly as she helped clean the table once the game was over. She brought the dishes to the kitchen and tucked in the dining room chairs.

Madame encouraged Thérèse to cut her domestic duties short in order to walk you home for you hadn’t ever crossed through Passage du Pont Neuf so late into the night and knew little of where to go from the shop, and Madame had taken a liking to you and how well-mannered you were.

“Were you amused in seeing me lose as often as I did?” you asked Thérèse after parting from the rest and down the sidewalks that led to your place.

“I was far more amused seeing you continue to play in spite of how often you lost,” she answered.

You laughed. “You are a sadist, I think.”

“You were not pained in losing,” Thérèse lightly contested. “I gathered you might even be less entertained if you were to have won.”

“Yes, perhaps.”

You lived in a building that housed several other residents, each with their own residential units, and yours was at the very top with two windows that stretched up close to the partially-angled ceiling. It was spacious enough to fit both your workspace, your kitchen, and your bedroom. There was little divide between these rooms aside from the floorplan in which one had to turn to get to one room or another, but generally, it was a rather open concept apartment unit.

Clearly, it was space enough for a person who lived alone, and the interior design and small fireplace and expansive windows was evident of your bountiful earnings as a writer for the periodical you worked under.

“Will you leave now?” you asked Thérèse once you were both standing in the middle of your apartment.

“You are asking me to?”

In quick specification, you clarified, “No, I mean if it is in your preference to leave. Are you planning on leaving now?”

“Is it in your preference to have me leave?”

Thérèse’s pressing of you made you slightly unsteady and your cheeks warmed. “No,” you said.

She smiled. “Then, no, I will not leave.”

The two of you talked on the couch of your workspace, as you did when you had been on your walk together several days ago. The conversation foresaw no end, and the comfort of being in a place that was privy only to the two of you only encouraged its seemingly infinite stretch.

You were sitting across from Thérèse, her legs folded on the couch in front of her as she sat horizontally to face you, her knees pulled up and laying against the couch’s back. She had undone her hair so you could now see it in its length, which was unexpected for the way her hair was always done made it seem that it was much shorter than it really was.

She was elegant and so ladylike.

The soft light from the fireplace across the room, about four metres from the foot of your bed, illuminated her face in a warm glow.

Suddenly, you felt the need to confess. “In the last few days, ever since I asked you to accompany me through Paris, I must admit that you have been going through my mind an awful lot.”

“This is awful?” Thérèse asked, straightening. She didn’t believe that you had truly meant to say that thinking of her was awful, but it really was amusing to see you stutter.

“N-No, I don’t mean that,” you corrected immediately. “I only meant that-that…” You searched for the words and adjusted yourself on the couch. “I felt guilty — perhaps this is the word — for thinking of you so much. To me, it felt predacious.”

To this, it seemed that Thérèse’s eyes seemed to momentarily flicker with ignition. You thought it merely a lick of the flame from the fireplace, reflecting against her eyes. “Is that so?” she inquired, pressing. “What felt… predacious to you?”

“Only that I couldn’t seem to stop thinking of you,” you explained. You shifted, uncomfortable as you exposed to her thoughts that you had been trying to avoid out of the shame that you had been having them. “But it was more so the kinds of ways I thought about you. I thought of things like your hair and… I’m not sure. Your voice, your lips. Silly things like this.” You began to speak quicker as if trying to rid yourself of the taste of your words from atop your tongue. “It felt scrutinising.”

Thérèse seemed to be contemplating something in deep thought as she looked at you. She took a small breath and spoke a confession of her own. “Y/N, I must also admit that I have been thinking similar things. Though, certainly, I would not equate my thoughts of you to scrutiny.”

“To what, then?” You wondered.

“Consumption,” Thérèse said, and the word captured you.

Trying to understand her usage of the word, you worked through it. “Your thoughts of me… consumed you?”

The glint in Thérèse’s eyes returned and for a second longer than before, and you looked over to the fireplace, now concerned for its constant leaping, only to find it rather docile.

“You misunderstand,” Thérèse said. When you turned, she was rising from her spot on the opposite side of the couch, hair spilling from behind her shoulders, moving onto the heels of her hands as she advanced towards you. Her other hand found your thigh under your dress and the pressure her fingers applied through your clothing made it seem to you that she meant to dig right through its fabric. “It is not I who was being consumed at the thought of you.”

Your breathing quickened and Thérèse only advanced even further up your body to the point that you had to shift back with your elbow resting on the armrest behind you.

Thérèse’s delicate fingers moved their way up your stomach and your chest that was picking up pace in its rising and falling. Her fingernail hooked itself under one of the buttons of your dress and pushed it to the side. You watched as it was nearly pushed beyond its slit to unbutton itself, but Thérèse let it slip from her fingernail. Her fingers wrapped around the collar of your dress and the tips of her fingers grazed against your neck and over your collarbone, nails raking lightly against the warm skin of your chest.

With a hand placed beyond your head and positioned atop of the armrest behind you, Thérèse gave herself height so she could run her eyes down what limited skin your dress’ collar exposed.

“Thinking of you…” Thérèse’s own breath began to quicken. “It was I who was consuming you. How I’ve hungered for you in the past few days, Y/N, salivated over how the salt of the skin of your neck would taste if I were to run my tongue across it, how your body would intertwine with mine.”

Her eyes finally left your clothed body and she met your gaze. “I want you,” she said simply.

You swallowed. “I’d be most pleased if you would have me.”

Her fingers tightened around your collar and she used the leverage to pull you up, slipping herself off from the couch and having you stand along with her.

She undid the buttons on your dress and began to undress you, while you took just a moment to catch up to the realisation that you also ought to be doing the same for her.

When your arms were free of your dress, Thérèse pushed it further down and tucked a few fingers beneath your crinoline so she could undo it and have it pool to the floor along with your skirts.

With skilled hands that only a woman could possess, Thérèse undid your corset with precision. Though the process of completely untying a corset was tedious, there was something so delicate and delicious about the way Thérèse undid yours.

You watched as her fingers weaved through the laces and loosened it slowly, steadily. Once or twice, she even looked at you and met your eyes as she did, her eyes having ignited with something hungry and captivating.

Once she finished with your corset and let it drop to the floor, allowing you to step out of the pool of your garments, you were now only in your chemise while you were still slowly undoing Thérèse’s corset.

She was a haberdasher, after all, and though the two of you were both familiar with the doing and undoing of a corset, it was Thérèse who was most skilled with the handling of clothing.

Her hands laid atop of yours and your fingers ceased their movements. She stepped towards you and laced her fingers through yours as she began to undo her own corset. You watched, down the space of her own chemise that slowly began to loosen as her corset was further untied, the rising and falling of Thérèse’s soft porcelain breasts.

“You need not be so concerned with being seen as a predator,” she said, her voice not quite a whisper but still rather low, like a gentle hum in the tune of a bedtime story. She stepped out of her own pool of clothing on the floor now that she was in her own chemise. Her hand found your chest and as she advanced forward, she pushed you back steadily so you were forced to walk backwards.

“Would you much rather prefer being preyed on?” she asked and ran her hands down your shoulders. “That would please me, anyhow.”

You swallowed. You didn’t quite realise how far Thérèse had been pushing you back until you had to quickly jut out your elbow to keep your weight from suddenly shifting onto your back. She raised a knee onto the edge of the bed and you watched as her chemise slid down her thigh. Her hand ran up the path between your breasts and encouraged you to continue moving backwards.

Her fingers reached the hollow base of your throat, the centre of your collarbone, and she pressed down gently, watching her fingers apply pressure to your compliant skin. Then, when your head was laid atop your pillows and her thighs were straddling your hips, Thérèse leaned down and pressed her warm lips to your neck.

“Perhaps what you had felt before was not guilt.” Her bottom lip ran up the expanse of your neck as she moved to kiss the warm space behind the lobe of your ear. “But rather a feeling of inadequacy, knowing that your desire would never take the form of that of a predator. You need not feel this way — not with me. And if not with me, then you need not ever feel it again.”

Her teeth tugged at your earlobe, let go, then pressed her a kiss again to the pulse of your neck, then down, and down further, until she could run her tongue flat against your neck, up further until the tip of her tongue pressed into the hollow space beneath your jaw bone. She bit down on the skin of your jawline then released. “You ought to know your place, and not feel compelled to take another.”

She straightened to look down upon you, fuelled deep within the warmth between her thighs by the look on your face with your flushed cheeks and lips parted to release your warm quickening breaths.

“Would it not feel better, knowing that it is I who will prey on you?” She spoke while moving further up your body, her knees moving herself upwards and her thighs brushing up your waist, up the sides of your ribs, your breasts. “Better, knowing that you ought to simply let yourself be consumed?”

Your eyes explored the uncovered expanse of Thérèse’s smooth thighs as she sat herself on your chest, your fingers tightening around your bedsheets and repressing the urge to reach up and touch her.

“Y/N.” Thérèse said your name. You looked up and slid her fingers down your cheek, cupping it softly and tipping your head up to meet your eyes. “I will not ever let you be anyone else’s but mine.”

Her words, though possessive and dominating, seemed almost as it were a forewarning as well; Thérèse still seemed to have reservations of this part of herself, and perhaps in a way, she feared what might happen if she were to completely give into it — give into herself. She worried about what she knew were to happen if she progressed any further.

“I have no interest for anyone else but you,” you told her, meeting her eyes tenderly. You released your bedsheets and laid your hands against the sides of her smooth thighs, warm palms leaving goosebumps in their wake as your fingers pressed into the pliable flesh of Thérèse’s ass.

Her hips buckled and she sighed through her nose, closing her eyes momentarily as she savoured your words and the first feeling of your hands on her body unobstructed by clothing.

Thérèse, suddenly overcome by certainty and a hunger now driven to what she felt was alike to famine, took your hair into her hand and used it as leverage to move herself further up. She raised from her position on your chest and after one failed attempt at keeping her chemise around her hips, she grew impatient and pulled the garment off altogether, tossing it back to the foot of the bed.

Finding that she did not want to face the same frustration with her underwear, she did away with that too.

Your eyes ran over her bare body, her smooth belly and the curves and dips of her waist and her hips, how soft her thighs looked, how perfectly her breasts were shaped, and the pink tint of her hardened nipples. Brown hair cascaded down her arms and chest.

“By God, I have never seen anything so beautiful,” you remarked. Your hands, unable to keep to themselves, ran up the expanse of her stomach, fingers wrapped around her waist as they moved further up. Your hands cupped her breasts, thumbs moving across Thérèse’s nipples.

She hummed shakily, both satisfied by your hands and words and also pleasured by them. Her hands came to the backs of yours, encouraging you to grope her rougher.

“When you came into the haberdashery,” she spoke, “I felt pity for you, that something so beautiful had to find herself amongst the rotting carcasses of that god-awful place.”

In gentle protest, you reminded her, “But there was you.”

Thérèse smiled down at you. Such consideration you had, and a kind heart. “And so there was.” She let go of one of your hands and stroked your cheek with the backs of her fingers.

She led your hands to her hips, and she wrapped her hand around the headboard of your bed. She moved herself onto her knees and settled them on either side of your head.

The scent of Thérèse’s sex made you salivate, and your fingers pressed into her hips with anticipation. Delicate pink folds presented themselves to you as she positioned herself above your face, so inviting.

Her other hand stroked your cheek one once more with her thumb before her fingers delved into your hair and repositioned your head. Then, she lowered herself onto your lips and you immediately opened for her.

Your tongue ran through smooth silken petals firstly in curiosity, lips wrapped around the warm embrace of her cunt. Her flavour spread into your tongue and your hands pulled her further down against your face.

Thérèse’s jaw was slack, her arm pressed against the wall in front of her so she could rest her forehead on her forearm. Her body was overcome with pleasure and, initially, she found it hard to do anything but moan and shut her eyes.

But the moment your tongue became that of a starving mouth rather than a curious one, Thérèse knew she had to start moving.

The pads of her fingers pressed against the back of your head, keeping your mouth against her pussy. She rolled her hips forward and back, nudging her clit against the tip of your nose as your tongue chased her cunt hungrily. Nectar spilled down your cheeks and smeared across your chin.

“Y/N.” Thérèse breathed your name. She let go of your hair and groped her breast, moaning in jagged rhythm as her rapid breaths meshed with her groans of pleasure. She had never felt such pleasure, and it was entirely sensical that it was you who was the first and only to give it to her. “Keep going, just like that. Don’t stop. You make me feel so good.”

You looked up at Thérèse from beneath her and felt the urge to explore her further. Your tongue dipped into her, into the slippery tang of her sweet nectar, while your one hand let go of her thigh and travelled up the curve of her ass and up her lower back, feeling where it dipped along the contour of her spine.

Her hips continued to roll against your face, thighs tightening around the side of your head as she depended less on the grip of the headboard and further on the stability of your head beneath her.

Your hand gripped at her waist, thumb pressed into her soft cream skin.

She let out a partially-repressed squeal and let go of the headboard, both hands now gripping your head with her fingers interlaced within your hair. You supported her with your one hand on her waist and your other on the back of her thigh, and Thérèse began grinding down against you with such speed and intensity that you could hardly move your tongue.

She took charge of her impending release, leaving you to be but an inanimate object she was merely using the tongue of.

Her fingers pulled your head up, right against her pussy so as to achieve the friction she needed, and you kept your tongue stiff and pliable for her delicate cunt.

“A-Ah… Y/N.” Thérèse’s voice started to become higher pitched, needier. “I’m…” Her head lolled back and her hair poured down the length of her arched back, her breasts moving in accordance to the rhythm of her hips, her neck becoming exposed. How terribly you wanted to press your lips there, where her skin was warm and smooth and scented of her perfume.

One of Thérèse’s hands released your hair and suddenly jutted out, her palm meeting the wall as she reached her pleasure’s peak. You could watch from beneath how her eyes squeezed shut and as her head fell forward, jaw slack as she cried out. The sight was almost animalistic in how unrestrained and entirely carnal it was.

In release, she was no longer constrained by the shadowed holds of the shop or Passage du Pont Neuf or even her own personal reservations, but a being so raw in her desire and expression, and entirely without guilt.

Thérèse’s body suddenly went lax and she leaned backwards, her other arm quick to hold herself up with her palm flat beside your hip. She caught her breath and you finally took your first full one once her cunt parted from your lips.

In silence and in awe for several moments, you merely watched the rising and falling of her chest as she breathed, deep and drawn-out.

Carefully so as not to disturb her balance, you arose onto your elbows and allowed Thérèse to adjust herself along your body. She opened her eyes and watched as you moved. She moved along with you so she was soon sitting in the middle of the bed with her knees bent against her chest and her hands behind her, holding herself up.

You advanced on all fours and parted her legs, kissing up the smooth skin of her inner thighs. She welled with admiration for you as she watched you on your knees in front of her, kissing her hips and her stomach, beneath her breasts, her nipples, her neck. Your kisses became more delicate as they reached her face, one hand cupping her cheek as you kissed up to her temple and then her forehead, and finally, her lips.

Her elbows buckled when you leaned down beside her and took her with you. She laid herself down beside you so the two of you were laying opposite of the headboard and closest to the fireplace opposite the bed, your eyes meeting tenderly with hers as you stroked her cheekbone with your thumb.

Your other arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her against you so her hips were pressed against yours, legs intertwined as if in their own entangled dance.

“I am hopelessly captivated by you.” Your hand moved away from her cheek and into the soft waves of her smooth brown hair. “I’d like to never leave such a state in any foreseeable future.”

Thérèse’s tranquil expression tugged into a slight grin and she moved herself closer so her breasts were pressed against your chest. “You needn’t concern yourself with any such future in which you belong to anyone else but me.” Her gaiety tinged with charming arrogance was incredibly endearing to you.

“Every morning since the beginning of time,” you said, “the sun has risen and it has set.” Thérèse listened intently to the gentle hum of your lullaby-like voice. “And yet books upon books have been written by hand of the many poets with hearts of unfettered lovers dedicated solely to the sun’s rising and its setting, and I presume, for as long as poetry and love are to exist, that this human habit of loving even the most inevitable will stretch into the far reaches of the human future. The inevitability in a future in which I am yours and no one else’s could not, and would not, even if it could, ever cease my desire for its occurrence.”

Thérèse kissed your lips. “How lucky am I to have captured such a woman with as much prowess for the written word as she has within her heart, then.” From her grin, you could feel the evenness of her teeth brush against your lips.

“And you,” you said with a tinge of hesitancy, “foresee a future in which you have in your possession more than only me?”

Thérèse moved up onto her elbow and you kissed the top of her breast as she shifted above you. “In the time that I have known you, which, admittedly, I would say is much shorter than I wish I could say — but we have the rest of time to make up for it — I have come to realise and accept truths about myself that I could not have otherwise, and that is to mean I could not have done so without you.” She brushed hair from your forehead with delicate fingers.

“In any interaction,” Thérèse said, “there exists two irrefutable beings, one being interacting with the other in mutuality. Before you, Y/N, I was neither being nor anything truly existent. I had no form, no sense of myself, no identity. For someone who has no established understanding of who they are, it becomes impossible to have anything important, to value anything or have any possession which is truly theirs. Do you understand, or am I speaking with the tongue of a madwoman?”

“I understand,” you said.

Thérèse smiled. She knew you would. “I am only who I have become because of you.” She kissed the bridge of your nose. “I am as much yours as you are mine. Everything I am is yours, and only yours.”

Then she asked, “Are you happy to own me, Y/N?”

You took her into your arms, pulled her down close so you could kiss her while Thérèse tried her best not to laugh too hard as to disturb the way your soft lips were pressed against hers.

She curled herself up against you and you held her close to your chest, one arm serving as a rest for her head and the other wrapped around her body.

“I am the happiest I have ever been,” you told her honestly.

Thérèse smiled against the warm embrace of your body, laying her head against the cushion of your breasts. She, too, was the happiest she’d ever been.

#thérèse raquin #thérèse raquin x you #thérèse raquin x reader #thérèse raquin x y/n #thérèse raquin fanfiction #thérése raquin smut #in secret #in secret fanfiction #elizabeth olsen

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chaithetics · 3 months ago

Text

The Muse

Pairing: Laurent LeClaire (In Secret) x plus size f (afab) reader Word count: 2.6K Warning: 18+ MDNI, smut, oral (f receiving, are we surprised?), and unprotected piv, pwp honestly! Reader is plus size but there's no other physical descriptions beyond that 🫶 A/n: Nobody asked for this but I have serious brain rot, please enjoy! Yeah, I know the title sucks, sorry. Comments and reblogs are appreciated! Please validate me beautiful people🫶

The way Laurent painted made you feel seen in a way that you never had been before. His large, deep brown eyes seemed to have the gift and curse of seeing a soul for what it really was and capturing it naturally onto the campus. You couldn’t help but hold your breath under his gaze, it was only each time he blinked and you were able to appreciate his full, long lashes that you remembered breathing was more than encouraged.

His paintbrush glided across the canvas, he’d blended the right colours to perfectly capture your glowing skin, radiant he thought. You weren’t the first person, or even woman, that he’d painted before. He’d painted many, many portraits of dreary souls but yours wasn’t one of them. Your face wasn’t begging to be shadowed in dreary greys, he wanted the most vibrant greens.

That pretty smile of yours made him think of pleasant summer strolls in nature, how he’d love to sit down by a tree with you and then take you, he knew your face would only light up more when approaching an orgasm. It was something he had to see. Something he had to feel.

The way he painted made your cheeks heat up, you’d never seen a man pay such close concentration to a task before, it was impossible to not feel like it was a compliment as he studied and compared your full cheeks to the one on his campus. You wanted to feel his lips on you as he thought about how soft your round cheeks would feel under his fingertips.

He painted with his mouth slightly agape, every now and then you’d spot his tongue poking out as he carefully looked at the canvas and then back at you, analysing every feature, appreciating every curve. It was criminal that your family was putting you in this position. Sure it sounded nice in theory, paying a talented young artist to capture their favourite child in a piece of art. But it was beyond impractical, leaving you unsupervised with him, some would call that improper.

So it was only natural that your cheeks heated up and that his gorgeous brown eyes made butterflies flutter around in your stomach and made your heart turn into one of a hummingbird. He was devilishly handsome, talented, and Laurent had waltzed into your family’s estate feigning humbleness and polite manners that you’d seen through immediately.

You didn’t trust him as far as you could throw him and you wouldn’t have been able to throw him far at all. But you also wouldn’t be able to deny any sparks, or him, even if you didn’t want to. He was a womaniser without a doubt, you could see that but you still couldn’t get over what he was doing to you.

“Tilt your chin to the left, just a tad.” His voice broke you out of your thoughts, it felt slightly stilted as if he was measuring over his words. You obeyed and tilted your chin slightly to the left.

Laurent nodded approvingly and stepped closer, his soft looking curls bounced slightly as he approached you and you wondered how soft his brunette locks would feel in your fingers. “You look quite perfect in this light, more so than usual.” He says softly as he places his fingers on your chin and looks at you reverently. He admires how the light of the afternoon dances on your skin, how your soft lips look and how your skin is as soft and warm as he’d imagined, dreamed of.

You tilt your chin without his aid to look up at him, you look at the lines of his face, the sharpness of his jaw, the perfectly tousled curls, the bridge of his nose, he’s handsome and you feel yourself holding your breath as you look up at him and his big brown eyes of cinnamon and other warm spices meet yours.

His fingers lightly trace over your soft jawline, he watches your face as he does, you gasp and feel your cheeks heat up as you feel the electricity meet you from the pads of his fingertips. If there was a candle to light for desire, he’s already lit it.

“You’re a pretty one to paint and an even prettier one to admire up close.” He says as his fingers start to trace back up to your cheek, Laurent lets out a shaky breath as he feels the smoothness of your plump cheeks, his fingertips lightly trace down to the edge of your lips.

“Do you mind?” He asks softly, his eyes are blown out though as lust starts to take over.

“No,” you whisper looking at his eyes and watching as his pupils expand, “not at all.”

It’s all the confirmation he needs, his fingers trace over your full lips, they’re just as soft and as warm as he imagined.

“Is this part of the painting process?” You whisper, trying to break some of the tension that’s threatening to make you explode on the spot. Laurent’s fingers feel your lips move and he smiles at the sensation and watches your mouth shape out each syllable.

“No, no it’s not.” He smiles at you and puts his other hand to cup your cheek, he smiles wider as you lean into his touch naturally, almost instinctively. “It does help to… Explore a muse’s body, but this… This is for me.” He whispers and while you’re seated in front of him, he leans down to kiss you.

There’s a bump of noses, the kiss isn’t perfectly smooth, it’s a strained cord of tension being pulled and sparks flying as his soft lips crash into yours. They’re pillowy and you love the feeling and taste of them against yours, you love this and you need more.

You knew this would be deemed improper but you were getting to the point of lust taking over and not caring. You knew that you technically could be caught, but this was to be expected right? You were left to be painted by this handsome man, completely unsupervised.

You put a hand up to run your fingers through his silky curls, he lets out a groan against your lips as you do. You smile and feel your cheeks heat up at the sound of his delicious groan and open your mouth up for him. Laurent dips his tongue in and slides it against yours.

Laurent deepens the kiss as your tongues dance with each others, and he pulls you up from your seat with his strong hands on the back of your waist. He keeps his hands there as his thumbs rub small circles over the fabric of your dress.

You walk with your hands in his hair, revelling in the kiss as he guides you down to the chaise in the room to lean back on that. You gasp out against his lips and he nips your bottom lip slightly with another delicious groan. Each noise he makes only turns you on more.

Laurent then drops down he looks at you as he pushes the layers of your heavy skirts up to your waist in order to expose you, he needs to taste you. He looks at your face, seeking a confirmation that this is what you want, this is what you need. You nod your head frantically.

“Yes…” You whisper, eager for his touch.

“Good.” He whispers.

You’re an incredible muse, one he plans to worship.

Laurent brings himself down to your legs, he runs his hands over your thick thighs for a moment as he lifts one up to over his shoulder. His eyes focus on your heat, you’re already visibly aroused and wet which makes his eyes light up and another musical groan comes from his mouth.

A line of kisses is sprinkled along your inner thigh that tickles and makes you gasp and squirm slightly before Laurent reaches right to your core, he wastes no time, he can’t, you look too divine to tiptoe around indulging in. He needs this just as much as you do.

His mouth dives in and your back arches as you feel him immediately lap up at your heat and he moans against you as he does, it just makes you moan out and shiver.

The vibrations from his moans against you are heavenly, you close your eyes and put your hands into his hair. Running your fingers through and gripping as his tongue circles your sensitive bud, his tongue moves frantically to create the perfect sensation and he keep moaning against you. You can’t help but cry out and tug his hair which just pulls out another sweet song of moans from him.

Laurent grips your thigh of the leg that’s over his shoulder as he keeps licking you frantically, with his free hand he slowly slides his index finger into your wet hole, you’ve done a perfect job of lubricating his finger as your entrance eagerly swallows him before he even has the chance to start pumping it.

You gasp and cry out and you feel your eyes roll back at the added, new sensation of his thick finger inside of you. You keep one hand rooted in his hair while the other comes out to cover your mouth to try and muffle your cries of pleasure.

This reaction only spurs Laurent on as he looks up at you while he continues, he presses his face against you more and starts to suck on your little, sensitive bud, you gasp out and thrust your hips up to try and meet him, desperate for more friction. Laurent groans against you and starts to grind desperately in his position as he keeps lapping you up and moves his finger, curling it to meet that soft, spongy part of you inside that feels like heaven.

As his mouth passionately continues and his finger touches you in just the right way, your back arches and your eyes roll back and you gasp, desperately flailing your hands to reach some part of the furniture to grip onto as you feel yourself reach the top of that mountain and come undone because of him.

It’s an explosion that leaves you breathless, after a moment you let out a shaky deep breath and pant. Laurent’s satisfied with his work of bringing you undone, he stops grinding and licks up your sweet, tangy orgasm gently and then moves to adjust himself.

“You taste heavenly,” he whispers in awe as he looks at you with wide, lust-blown, dark eyes. He brings his slick finger up to his lips and sucks your juices off of it slowly, savouring the taste. You gasp at this and feel your cheeks heat up even more.

“That was… I don’t even have words for that…” You whisper as you look up at him.

Laurent chuckles almost bashfully, there’s something charming about you, hypnotising and he can’t just walk away now or resume painting you without feeling you.

“I need… I need more…” He whispers as he looks at you reverently and caresses your cheek.

“Well I want more… So it sounds like we’re quite the match.” You whisper with a smile as you watch him.

He chuckles and then immediately undoes his trousers, he adjusts himself and you bite your lip as you see his thick member for the first time.

Laurent positions himself and slowly sinks in, your mouth opens in an ‘o’ shape as you moan out at the full feeling of him slowly sinking in. He lets out a soft whimper as he feels your warm walls swallow him up and squeeze him lightly. You’re perfect. He feels so at home like this.

Laurent watches your face as he enters you, the sounds of your moans only ignite him further and he closes his eyes and he waits for a few moments, giving you time to adjust to the sudden fullness, the feeling of him. He then starts to slowly move his hips and your eyes open wide and you let out a moan as he does. It’s heavenly. It feels so right, like your bodies fit together perfectly.

You let out a whine as his pace starts to increase, he moves his hips rhythmically, you’re sure he must be a true artist, dabble in music as well because of the way he moves. There’s no other explanation you think as your back arches pressing you more into him and he smiles at the feeling, his hand running along your cheek as he moves with passion and affection.

His pace has increased, his hips move quickly and you whine out. He moves with need, a need that only you can fulfil. You tilt your head slightly as he thrusts into you and kiss him, your lips meet together in another messy kiss of wet, soft lips dancing against each other and vibrating with the other's moans.

The kiss breaks when he thrusts into you deliciously and makes you cry out, your head falls back against the chaise more and your back arches as you’re overcome with pleasure. The angle of his movements hits you in the most pleasure-inducing way.

Laurent moves his head down, presses a soft kiss to your throat and then groans into your neck as his hips move quicker, his soft lips leaving a wet spot, it’s a sensation that would tickle in any other circumstance, any other circumstance that doesn’t have him buried in you. The few calluses on his hands are from paint brushes, despite the fact that he’s atop of you, socially he’s below you, but he still hasn’t worked a day of manual labour in his life. His hands are delicate and blend the greatest scenes of pleasure in your body.

His careful hands move to interlace with yours above your head as he continues to thrust into you, his eyes are squeezed shut as his hips roll and he groans, he’s getting closer. Laurent leaves open mouthed kisses all over and the feeling of his hot breath on your throat makes you gasp each time.

There was something truly divine about seeing you in the throes of passion, it made his length twitch inside of you as he groaned but it also inspired him. Inspired him to paint. He wished more than anything that there was some way for him to simultaneously take you, fuck you, make love to you and to also paint you at the same time. He would rather die than have somebody else give you this pleasure and for him to paint you, but he also wouldn’t trust another artist to be able to do you justice if they watched you two together. He’d have to take breaks between fucking you and painting you to try and achieve his vision, something he had no issues with.

Laurent watches you and squeezes your hands slightly as his hips move more sporadically and he becomes more out of breath, he’s just a few more thrusts away from reaching his orgasm. He groans out and whimpers as he gives you that final thrust and spills into you, you squeeze him and his eyes blink shut tightly as he orgasms.

His breath is shaky as he comes down from that high and he looks down at you, below him. He knows that only the beautiful muse of the woman below him would be able to give him that kind of pleasure. He won’t complain about that though, that’s the type of realisation an artist like him could dream of.

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maximilfisms · 1 year ago

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draw me like i'm one of your french girls | thérèse raquin x fem!reader

Summary: Thérèse, trapped in her unwanted marriage to Camille, seeks comfort in Y/N, the talented artist who painted her husband's portrait, in the form of an illicit rendezvous. Or a glimpse on one of those nights where Y/N would sneak into Madame Raquin's shop, fulfill Thérèse's needs, and disappear like ghosts in the air.

Word count: 2k+

Tags: 18+, smut, fingering, cheating, semi-public sex? idk, but they almost got caught, bottom!thérèse, top!reader, what's proofreading?, MDNI!

this is my first fic, and i honestly don't even know what i am doing rip

The moonlight shone its faint light to the labyrinthine streets of Paris, where gaslights cast flickering shadows upon the cobblestone alleys, and the whispers of clandestine affairs lingered like the fragrance of aged wine. Thérèse found solace in the hidden corners of a city draped in secrets. The narrow passages, cloaked in the heavy scent of impending rain, and the hushed murmur of distant voices all served as the backdrop for her forbidden love. It was within this maze of dimly lit alleyways, where the echoes of the footsteps of busy Parisians harmonized with the nocturnal symphony of the city, that she navigated the complexities of their entangled destinies.

The bedroom, perched on the second floor of her aunt, Madame Raquin's shop, became their clandestine haven—a sanctuary veiled in heavy drapes, the creaking sighs of weathered floorboards, and the gaslights flickered outside, transforming her marital bedroom into a cocoon where the artistry of their passion unfolded. The ambient glow painted an intimate tapestry upon the walls, revealing the shared vulnerability of two souls seeking refuge in the shadows.

The air itself seemed to hold the whispers of lovers from eras past, a blend of the city's musky perfume and the intoxicating aroma of forbidden desire. Thérèse, adorned in the trappings of societal expectations, stood before her woman with a yearning that mirrored the palpable tension of the quiet night. Y/N, the painter with fingers that could evoke emotion from pigments, gazed at Thérèse as if deciphering the poetry etched upon her soul. The dim light filtered through the bedroom's heavy drapes, casting Thérèse's silhouette in a dance of shadows that accentuated the soft curves of her vulnerability, and Y/N, a connoisseur of emotion, observed with an artist's discerning eye—a voyeur capturing the essence of clandestine passion in each subtle movement.

"Draw me like I'm one of your French girls," Thérèse whispered, her voice a soft plea that echoed in the dimly lit room, where their secret unfolded against the backdrop of Paris's clandestine allure.

Y/N, attuned to the nuances of their surroundings, nodded in silent agreement despite the subtle yet genuine smile that graced her lips. The room, a haven shrouded in the mysteries of the night, bore witness to the illicit dance of two souls—a dance painted with the strokes of desire, vulnerability, and the unspoken language of their love.

Y/N's hands moved with purpose, much like the strokes of a brush in a canvas that became an intimate exploration of Thérèse's essence. Her slender fingers brushed Thérèse's shoulders, sliding off the brunette's dress off of it, watching as the fabric fell onto her feet. Y/N's eyes glimmered with sheer affection for the woman, her point finger tracing Thérèse's prominent collarbones, down to her sternum, where the valley's of her breasts lay, waiting to be worshiped.

“You truly are a work of art, mon amour,” The artist whispered as she leaned in to place chaste kisses on her soft neck, and Y/N's hands palmed the supple flesh of Thérèse's breasts, touch as tender as the stroke of an artist's brush. Each caress of the canvas mirrored the unspoken language that flowed between them—the language of love that dared not speak its name in the harsh light of day.

Yet, the threat of discovery loomed above them like a guillotine, sharp and unforgiving. Camille, Thérèse's unsuspecting husband, engaged in games just outside, unaware of the symphony of passion that played out on the shop's second floor, on their marital bed.

"We must be cautious," Thérèse whispered, her eyes darting towards the creaking floorboards below. "Madame Raquin and Camille must not suspect."

Y/N, whose heart beat in rhythm with Thérèse's, nodded solemnly. "Our love is a secret garden, Thérèse, one that flourishes in the shadows but withers in the harsh light of judgment.” She spoke as her hands went to cradle Thérèse's cheeks. “I promise to be careful.”

The bedroom, once a marital sanctuary for Thérèse and Camille, transformed into the backdrop of an illicit affair. The fear of discovery heightened the intensity of their connection, turning stolen kisses into acts of rebellion against a world that sought to confine them.

Outside, the city's heartbeat continued, oblivious to the symphony of emotions that echoed within the four walls of the bedroom. Thérèse, her heart torn between duty and desire, reached out to Y/N, their fingers entwining in a silent vow that defied the constraints of their reality.

With the air thick of passion, tender affections, and fear, all that had happened went on like a blur. Both women couldn't remember who leaned in first to trap their lips into a fiery but loving embrace, and yet, the flickering candlelight cast an ethereal glow upon their entangled bodies, the shadows playing upon the tapestry of their clandestine love. Y/N dared to speak, to try and use the last of her reason, to attempt at stopping herself despite knowing that she had gone far too deep, but, Thérèse, overcome by the weight of societal expectations, pressed a trembling finger to Y/N's lips, silencing the unspoken fears that lingered between them.

No words were needed as the artist took the initiative and resumed their kiss, her lips brushing against Thérèse's as the bedroom became a cocoon, shielding them from the judgmental eyes of society. The intimacy between them, though a spark in the vast darkness, burned with the intensity of a thousand suns.

Y/N carefully lay the woman beneath her to the plush bed, hands exploring Thérèse's skin like a caveman threading a path in the unfamiliar wilderness. The tips of her fingertips toyed with Thérèse's hardened nipples, eliciting held back whimpers from the woman laying beneath her.

“Y/N…” Thérèse whispered, but she only gave her woman a smile in response, taking the other nipple to her mouth, and sucking on it like a newborn starved. Thérèse closed her eyes shut, body overwhelmed by the sensations of Y/N's worship, only for those brown orbs to flutter open along with her mouth as two fingers eased their way to her core.

A sly smile tugged in the corners of Y/N's pink lips, gazing up at Thérèse whose pupils were blown wide, and mouth covered with one hand, containing the noises that ought to escape her with each thrust of the artist's long and slender fingers in her tight pussy.

Thérèse's labored breathing, accompanied with the wet sloshing sounds created by her dripping entrance and Y/N's fingers, were the only sounds heard in the stillness of the night. That was before a sudden creaking of the weathered floorboards interrupted the women's intimate bubble, sending shivers down Thérèse's spine. Her eyes widened, but Y/N did not pull back even as her breath was caught in the suspense of the moment. Instead, her fingers only went faster, opting to guide the writhing woman below her to the pinnacle of her high, and the contracting of Thérèse's pussy against her fingers only served as an indication that she was on the right track.

Thérèse struggled to finish the sentence as she held back her moans in between, "Our world would crumble." Y/N hummed in approval as she leaned in to Thérèse's clit, using her tongue to stimulate the woman's bundle of nerves that only made it harder for the latter to control her sounds, more so as she came all over Y/N's face and fingers, legs trembling as the artist's fingers slowed down its thrusts, prolonging the release.

"Quiet, amour," Y/N whispered breathily, a twinge of worry in their voice amidst the obvious arousal. "If Madame Raquin or Camille were to hear—"

The bedroom, though once a haven for marital vows, now bore witness to a love that dared to defy the norms of its time. Thérèse and Y/N, in the quiet moments between heartbeats, exchanged vows that resonated with the soulful ache of a love that existed in the shadows. The night wore on, and with each passing moment, the threat of exposure intensified. Thérèse, torn between the intoxication of love and the fear of societal retribution, felt the weight of their clandestine affair like a stone pressing against her chest. The gaslights outside continued to flicker, casting a gentle glow upon the tangled sheets that bore witness to the stolen moments of Thérèse and Y/N's clandestine affair. The night, though silent, echoed with the lingering whispers of a love that dared to exist in the shadows of the city.

In the quiet aftermath of their shared passion, the room held the remnants of their intimate communion. Thérèse, her senses heightened by the mingling scents of jasmine and musk, traced her fingers along Y/N's bare chest—the contours of a lover and confidante. The air, once heavy with fear, now carried the sweet echo of their shared pleasure. Y/N, eyes filled with a tenderness that mirrored Thérèse's, brushed a strand of hair away from her flushed face.

"You don't know what you do to me, Thérèse," Y/N murmured, their voice a soothing melody that hung in the air. "I hear your voice in my dreams, feel the ghosts of your touch on my body, and crave you like I haven't satiated myself in years."

Thérèse, still lost in the aftermath of their intimacy, met Y/N's gaze with a mixture of gratitude and longing. The world outside, with its judgmental eyes and societal expectations, felt distant—a mere whisper in the night.

"Promise me, Y/N," Thérèse pleaded, her voice a fragile whisper. "Promise me that our love will endure, that it will be a persevering flame against the winds of adversity."

Y/N, caressing Thérèse's cheek with a touch that bordered on reverence, responded, "I don't have to promise anything, Thérèse. Like the stars above, I know our hearts will shine even in the darkest nights."

The bedroom, once charged with the tension of secrecy, now cradled the two lovers in a post-coital embrace. Their entangled limbs spoke of a passion that transcended societal norms, a love that flourished in the clandestine corners of their shared existence.

In the silence that followed, Y/N traced circles on Thérèse's skin, each touch a reassurance of their shared vulnerability. The room, steeped in the essence of their intimacy, held the echoes of their whispered promises and the delicate symphony of their love. The shadows, once a cloak for their secret desires, now danced upon the walls like witnesses to a tale written in the language of tender glances and lingering touches.

Thérèse, her senses attuned to the lingering traces of their passion, gazed into Y/N's eyes as if searching for the permanence of their connection. Y/N, the artist who knew how to breathe life into moments, held Thérèse with a gaze that mirrored the profound depth of their shared intimacy.

As the first light of dawn painted the sky in hues of soft pink, Thérèse and Y/N lay intertwined, bodies and souls entwined in a tapestry of shared vulnerability. The air, now tinged with the promise of a new day, carried the remnants of their intimacy—a scent that lingered like a secret between them.

"Promise me you'll come when I call again," Thérèse pleaded, her gaze locking with Y/N's in a silent pact. "When I need you the most, when I feel my cage even more… promise me you'll come running.”

Y/N, brushing a stray strand of hair from Thérèse's face, nodded with a smile etched on her face. "I'll be here before you know it."

As the sun rose, casting its golden rays upon the city of Paris, Thérèse and Y/N knew that the world awaited their departure from the intimate cocoon they had woven together. With a final, lingering kiss, Thérèse and Y/N parted ways, slipping into the daylight as if reentering a world that demanded conformity. The bedroom, now silent and empty, held the memories of their stolen moments—a gallery of passion that defied the limitations of societal norms.

#wanda maximoff #wanda x reader #wanda maximoff smut #elizabeth olsen #elizabeth olsen x female reader #thérèse raquin #therese raquin #wanda maximoff x female reader #smut #in secret #wlw

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