suffering sappho!
“Okay,” says Dani, her tone filled with tender restraint, “if I’d known you were going to look like that I wouldn’t have told Bev we’d be at the party.”
“It’s not funny,” says Jamie, joylessly. The costume is a good deal tighter than she’d initially anticipated, and the shorts are certainly a good deal shorter than anything else she’s ever worn. “I’m not going out like this. I look...ridiculous.”
She gestures down at herself and just barely fights the urge to turn on her heel and disappear back into the bedroom before Dani can get another word in. Really, she knows the only person to blame is herself because she’s the one who hasn't done the homework. For all Dani has talked about this silly show she watched as a child, Jamie has never once bothered looking into it. All she’d known was superhero and alter ego . It seemed fitting— cute , even—that Dan wanted to dress up as the latter version of the former, leaving Jamie to the more heroic costume.
A couple’s costume that Bev and the other women at Pearl’s would think is cute . Not that Jamie and Dani need one of those; cute is practically the only word in the vernacular of the regulars there whenever the two of them go by after work. Normally, Jamie is just fine with that. After all the trouble it took her and Dani to get where they are—all those nightmares and memories and hours spent clutching one another, reassuring one another that neither of them was going anywhere —they deserve to be recognized for the domestic bliss they’ve managed to cultivate here in Burlington.
It’s certainly been hard-won.
But this, Jamie thinks—
This is a step too far.
“I’m not laughing at you,” Dani says, and it’s true: there isn’t a hint of humor in her voice. Just the unassuming affection of the woman who’s loved her for three years already. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
This does very little to clear things up and Jamie frowns, unable to resist the urge to cross her arms over her chest to try and detract from the pale expanse of her bare shoulders. Irritation simmers in her blood at her own lack of understanding; Dani’s lack of making things clear .
“I’m going to be freezing in this,” Jamie says. “I might as well go out in my underwear.”
Dani makes a face, but she isn’t frowning. It’s an expression that means something else. Amusement, perhaps, but that only serves to make Jamie even more frustrated. “Don’t you dare.”
Standing there in those silly fake glasses, that flowery blouse and that pencil skirt, she almost looks like a version of herself from another life. Her blonde hair is pulled back away from her face and her eyes are wide with something Jamie is too busy feeling embarrassed to name. Briefly, she imagines ducking herself into Dani’s arms and hiding away from the world—from her own plummeting sense of self-worth—but she doesn’t.
Not yet.
“You’re enjoying this too much,” Jamie says and now Dani does laugh.
“I am,” she agrees. “But not because you look ridiculous.”
The bird wall-clock in the kitchen—a Christmas gift from Dani’s mother—releases the trill, staccato call of a blackbird, meaning that it’s already eight o’clock. The Pearl’s halloween party has already been going for a half-hour and, while neither of them said they would attend the whole thing, the simple discussion of them showing up at all is enough to make Jamie feel guilty for standing around feeling sorry for herself.
“Then why?” Jamie asks, a frustrated huff of air trailing after the question.
Now Dani does laugh—this joyous noise that never fails to make Jamie swoon a little. “You really don’t know how sexy you look right now, do you?” she asks and—
Well, no .
“What?”
Dani takes a step forward and reaches out, pulling Jamie’s arms from where they’re crossed over her chest. Once she’s close enough for Jamie to smell the mint of their mouthwash, she says, “If I ask nicely, will you show me some other ways to use the Lasso of Truth, Wonder Woman?”
Her breath is hot against Jamie’s cheeks, flushing warmth down her lips and jaw, down her neck; images of the two of them, tangled together in bed, come immediately to mind, followed by one that makes everything inside of Jamie click to a sudden stop .
Dani spread bare on the mattress, her arms raised above her head, the silly, golden lasso from the costume shop tying her wrists to the slats of the headboard.
She just barely manages to keep herself from making a truly inelegant noise and Dani is so, so frustrating because she isn’t even touching her . It’s just words, just air heated inside Dani’s beautiful, wet mouth and that’s truly all it takes to make Jamie melt. Sometimes, it’s even less than that.
Love is silly. She’s still learning that every day. Love makes you want to fall to your knees just from the soft touch of a hand to your shoulder.
Dani brushes her thumb over Jamie’s freckled collarbone and presses a chaste kiss to her forehead. Jamie sighs and curls a hand around Dani’s hip, gripping the fabric of that pencil skirt between her grasping fingers. “If you’re good,” she whispers, flooding it with as much authority as she can manage.
She’s at a supreme disadvantage given the scratch of her girlfriend’s clothes against her thighs, but she thinks she does a decent enough job. Especially when Dani whines faintly, right in the high of her throat.
“An hour,” Dani says once she seems to have gotten herself together enough to form a rational thought again. “One hour. We have a couple of drinks, make an appearance.”
It’s incredible how quickly Jamie’s hesitation has morphed into something else—something torrid and fervid, a match waiting to strike against the hard press of Dani’s body to her own. An hour seems like torture. Too long for her to survive through.
But just a minute before, she was half-ready to crawl beneath the covers for a whole other reason. Now, confidence is ballooning inside her chest and the costume is beginning to seem less and less silly the longer Dani looks at her like that .
An hour seems too long.
“Forty-five minutes,” she says, stepping away and holding up a finger. “And then you’re mine. ”
Dani hums, leaning in to press a kiss to the side of Jamie’s jaw. “I’m already yours,” she says and it takes everything within Jamie to get her out of their apartment at all.
_______
In the end, the knots are just for show. Jamie’s never pretended to know how to tie a woman up and she thinks it would be a problem if she had anyway. The pair of them go into it knowing full well that Dani could pull herself free at any given moment—whenever she wanted to, really—but the fantasy is built on the magic of not wanting to.
She’s still in her costume blouse, though her blazer has long since been abandoned. Jamie thinks it might be somewhere near the front door. Her skirt, too, had been one of the first things eagerly removed; Dani sat at the edge of the bed while Jamie kneeled in front of her, tugging the tight material down her hips and legs, dotting kisses on her pale skin as it was revealed. The amount of self-control she’d exerted in those moments to keep from just dropping her mouth between Dani’s legs is something that she thinks she deserves a round of applause for.
But, then again, this works, too.
This being the sight of Dani below her on the bed, eyes shut tight, bottom lip caught between her teeth as she tries to hold herself together. Her chest heaves with each breath, spreading her loose and unbuttoned blouse further and further apart, until Jamie is the one who can’t breathe right. There are few sights more lovely than Dani whenever she’s right on the brink of getting everything she won’t ask for.
Jamie is positioned between her legs, which are hooked up high around the backs of Jamie’s thighs. Each time Dani deems a movement of hers as “too far away,” those legs pull against her, pinning her tighter to Dani’s squirming body. Dani is always so quick to fall apart, ever since that first time in her dark bedroom at Bly with Jamie’s hand pressed over her mouth to muffle her noises so the children wouldn’t wake up. She’s apologized for it before, citing her sparse sexual history as evidence for why it was unlike her, but Jamie’s never accepted it.
A few things Dani never has to apologize for: worrying too much, baking brownies from a mix for the n th time within a given period of time, and orgasming readily and easily whenever they have sex.
If anything, Jamie has told her, it’s a compliment. A testament to how into this kind of intimacy Dani is. She’s flattered. Really.
And, besides, it’s made Jamie more inventive. Knowing that Dani can come so quickly from just a few well-timed swirls of Jamie’s fingers has led to some interesting quickies in places Jamie never would have considered with any other partner.
Plus, this:
The way Dani bucks her hips, grinding into Jamie’s stomach, as she arches her back and groans out Jamie’s name. She goes slack after a moment, already spent from Jamie’s tongue on her nipples, her mouth pressing kisses across her sternum and neck. To be expected, perhaps, given her history and the warpath Jamie’s mouth has been on since she tied Dani to the damn bed in the first place.
“Already?” Jamie teases, scraping her teeth across the pebbled flesh of Dani’s left nipple. “From just this?”
Dani’s laugh becomes a moan. She thrusts her chest a little further against the warmth of Jamie’s mouth. “Don’t let it go to your head,” she sighs.
“What if it already has?”
It’s love in Dani’s eyes when she blinks them open and fixes Jamie with a mock glare. Love and devotion and maybe a little bit of exasperation.
All well-earned in Jamie’s mind.
She switches breasts, turning her attention to the neglected one.
“If you keep that up,” Dani says, breathy and frangible, “we’ll be oh-for-two pretty quick. And then how will I catch up?”
Humming against Dani’s skin, Jamie gives her a little shrug and winks, even as she flicks her tongue in the shape of an uppercase D . “M’sure you’ll think of something.” She presses a kiss to the nub of pink flesh and lifts her head, then her body a little.
“I’m definitely not a match for superhero stamina,” Dani jokes and Jamie realizes—quite suddenly—that she’s still wearing the damn costume. The stupid star-spangled shorts and the showy top tucked in. At least she’d thought enough to kick the boots off at the door. How Dani has been able to take any moment of this seriously while she’s being pinned to the bed by Wonder Woman— tied to the bed by her stupid, golden lasso—Jamie doesn’t know. She doesn’t really aim to find out, either. But, when she reaches back for the buttons on her top so she can slide the whole thing off, Dani’s hand reaches up to stop her. “Wait,” she says. “Leave it on.”
Jamie’s eyebrows raise. “Color me shocked,” she says. “I didn’t know you were into this sort of thing, Poppins.”
“I’m not,” Dani says, too quickly, and then seems to realize her fatal mistake. She winces, then starts again. “I mean...you just look really good in that costume.”
“Sweet-talker, you,” Jamie scolds, but she lowers her hands from the back of her costume all the same. She’ll keep it for the time being. Who is she to judge when she has Dani spread out below her looking like that ?
Dani’s legs pull her in a little closer, until Jamie is dropping down to her palms on the mattress, and she hums as their teeth clack together, pressing into a sloppy kiss once they’ve reoriented themselves. “Just the truth,” she whispers, the husk of her voice sending little shivers down Jamie’s arms and spine, pooling heat lower down.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Jamie breathes, and she kisses her again, one of her hands sliding up Dani’s ribs to curve around her breast. She squeezes softly, pinching Dani’s nipple between her first two fingers with the movement and Dani moans, this wanton noise that makes Jamie feel beyond herself.
“Wanna touch you,” Dani murmurs, her hands flexing where they’re tied up above her head.
“Think that’s the point, doll,” Jamie says. She licks into Dani’s mouth, the hum she gets in return vibrating her teeth and making her buck her own hips down into Dani’s. “But, for now...be good.”
The words make Dani curse under her breath and shudder. Jamie stores that reaction away for later and focuses, instead, on sucking a mark below Dani’s collarbone. Leaning on her left arm, she slides her right down Dani’s stomach and slips it into her panties, pressing her lips together as Dani reacts to this first touch. It’s her favorite part, really—the calm before the storm; just one breath before it settles in all the way.
Of course, Dani never disappoints. She makes this mewling noise high in the back of her throat, muscles clenching still as Jamie sinks her fingers into her warmth. Jamie only hesitates for a beat or two before she slides down to circle Dani’s clit with her forefinger, moving slow and steady, working her up bit-by-bit like she normally does when they’re trying something new.
And one of them being tied to the bed, the other in a fucking Wonder Woman costume, is certainly something new.
“You don’t have to...hold back,” Dani says, her voice gasping around each word. Her eyes are fixed down at Jamie, who stares back at her with a quirked eyebrow, trying to gauge just what means by that. “I’m not gonna break, you know.”
Jamie gives her a tentative smile. “Yeah?” she asks, slowing her swirling fingers to a standstill as she waits for this final go-ahead.
Dani nods, an eager bob of her head that, her skin hotter than metal in the summer sun where Jamie is pressed into her. There’s a note of silent promise in her eyes
( believe me believe me i’m good i’m great )
and whatever Jamie is expecting it isn’t this:
“Fuck me like you mean it, Jay.”
Simmering heat bleeds behind Jamie’s eyelids, flickering white snowflakes across her vision as the instruction cuts through the gentle pericardium beneath her sternum and sends her heart into the spit-fire tumble of a woman unhinged . It’s more than she could ask for and the surprise of hearing Dani’s careful and sweet voice say that is almost more than she can take, too. So often, Dani is completely unable to voice aloud what she wants—some nights she is too nervous to say whether she prefers Jamie’s mouth or fingers this time around.
And now—
She nods, dry-mouthed, and Dani has time to nod back at her before Jamie gives in to the push-and-pull tide of lust and wanting that’s always there, always present, between them. She presses her mouth against Dani’s in a wet kiss and then dots her lips hot down her neck, her chest—past her spit-slick breasts and bony ribcage. Nipping as she goes; sucking a mark here or there; making Dani writhe ; making Dani groan in the throes of some endless, painful wanting.
“Dani,” Jamie whispers, smothering the word into the dip of Dani’s belly button, “I can smell you, baby. Wanna eat you out so bad, doll. Wanna taste you.”
“Then do it,” Dani gasps and Jamie already has permission—she doesn’t really need more.
But it doesn’t hurt.
She pulls back enough to settle on worshipful knees, tugging Dani’s panties off—a strange dance no matter how gone they are—so she can reach her better. No limitations. No barriers. And Jamie doesn’t speak again. Doesn’t bother. She just leans forward and presses her mouth to the heat waiting between Dani’s legs.
It’s too much to be technical about it and there’s certainly no room for teasing anymore, so Jamie settles for licking Dani hard and fast. With the zeal of someone starving, on fire, gripping the spark of a livewire. She fucks Dani with her tongue and then slips back up to suck around her clit so that her fingers have room to move and slip down and in .
Above her, Dani writhes—a landscape of jutting hip bones, the valley of her stomach, her chin just beyond the round of her breasts, pointed upwards with her head rolled back. A wild string of curses and sounds that shape around Jamie’s name fall from her pink lips, making Jamie squirm a little on her own—making her hips jump and seek out the pressure of the mattress below her through the fake-satin slip of her costume shorts.
Wrists pull a little at the rope, on the headboard, and then Dani comes—this long, luxurious thing that doesn’t seem to end even when Jamie climbs up her body again. Not until Jamie is dropping to an elbow above her, pressing kisses to Dani’s throat and stroking her damp fingertips across Dani’s hip.
“Fuck,” Dani breathes and Jamie can’t help the laugh that escapes her slicked-up mouth. “That was—” she starts next, but Jamie shakes her head and then turns it to wipe her chin on her arm before kissing Dani. Hard .
“Not done with you yet,” is whispered into the warm cave of her mouth and Dani can only make this small noise of agreement in return.
Jamie thinks it sounds a bit like Oh, God , but she’s too busy reaching blindly for the bedside table. Too busy fumbling with the drawer and pulling out the small, velvet bag waiting inside. Too busy sitting back on her knees and finally pulling that damned costume off her body—tossing it somewhere, anywhere—while Dani watches with hooded, eager eyes. Too busy wrenching the bag open to pull out the harness.
Dani’s hands pull at the rope as she watches Jamie fasten the straps–and then the toy—around her hips, like she’s eager to assist her if only so she’ll move faster . But it doesn’t matter anyway because then Jamie is between her legs, guiding the toy in a gentle rocking motion, parting Dani with each movement and making her gasp. Making her shiver. Loop those legs up around Jamie’s hips and pull until they shift; Jamie slips inside her with the practiced ease of a seasoned lover, but Dani’s earlier words
( still sparking fire and whiskey-hot in the air )
change things a little. Just so.
Jamie doesn’t hesitate. She doesn’t wait a moment to let Dani adjust like she always has in the past. Instead, she withdraws almost immediately, cocking her hips back and then slamming forward and hard , making Dani whimper and tug at the rope around her wrists. She turns her head, pressing her mouth into her own upper arm like she’s trying to keep quiet, but that only serves to speed everything up.
Fucking her in quick, fitful thrusts, Jamie grits her teeth so hard they squeak and balls the sheets up in her left fist. She brings her right hand down to cup Dani’s hip, to slide along the thigh that’s curled around her own waist and grunts a bit in surprise when Dani’s heels press into her spine. “Wanna hear you,” she manages, her heart biting the words, breathless and lost to the imagined sensation of Dani squeezing around her. “Tell me how it feels, doll.”
“S- so good,” Dani gasps. She arches her neck and Jamie drops her mouth down to kiss it. “So good, Jay, please . Faster.”
Jamie slips her fingers between Dani’s legs, the angle pinching her hand a little as she seeks out her clit and presses into it. “Come for me, baby. Come with me.”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes.” Dani nods with each repetition, her whimpers singing along with Jamie’s as she grinds up into every thrust. Back arched and sweaty skin clinging to Jamie’s, everywhere that counts. Her eyes open and Jamie rests their foreheads together, looking at her, taking stock of what she has, what she has .
She has so much.
Her orgasm sneaks up on her, knocks her flat and winded down into Dani’s body, blustered curses and promises huffed against the abused skin of Dani’s lips. Lost in her own orgasm, Dani pulls free of Jamie’s piss-poor knots, her arms coming down to cling desperately around Jamie’s shoulders and hold her closer, tighter.
“Love you, love you,” Jamie says into each kiss, letting the press of Dani’s bones beneath her own bite electric and bruising for just a moment longer. Below her Dani nods, and laughs, kisses her back. There’s a ringing in Jamie’s ears that sounds a bit like a song that always makes her think of Dani. She hums it into Dani’s sweat-damp hair as they catch their breath.
“Mmm,” Dani hums, scratching her nails down Jamie’s back. “Love you, too.”
“That was...wow.”
A tired nod. “Seconded.” Her hips bump up against Jamie’s a little; the toy is still inside her and every one of Jamie’s movements makes her shiver. “Still hate that costume?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Jamie laughs, her vertebrae twitching beneath Dani’s palms.
Dani reaches back and grabs for the lasso. She pulls one of Jamie’s hands into her own and wraps it around her wrist, smirking. “Honestly?” she asks. “Remember, you have to tell the truth.”
“Is that how that works?” Jamie asks, thinking of Dani’s trembling confessional, given just before they each fell victim to each other’s desires.
“Yep,” Dani says, popping the last consonant happily.
Jamie rolls her eyes, always defaulting to that tender preservation irony has always provided her. “Of course I don’t,” she says and Dani’s smile is sparking bright and blinding, begging to be kissed again and again. Jamie plans to do just that—to pick up where they stopped for a breather and maybe even bring this silly costume prop into play again—but first things first:
“It’s a wonder I ever did.”
Dani’s laugh is one of the best things Jamie’s ever heard.
..