Chapter Text
Shauna is sick of the complaining, frankly.
Either date him or don’t.
It’s an average slumber party between them, both dressed in matching silk pyjamas Shauna kinda hates. They watched Beaches earlier. They raided the liquor cabinet and drank something red, expensive and French. All of this dictated by Jackie.
She’s struck with a sense of nauseating boredom mixed with deja vu as Jackie sprawls out on Shauna’s bed like she owns it, relaying the details of her latest Jeff-related issue. She’s heard it all before, and this is nothing different - in fact if there was a bingo card for Jackie-Jeff complaints, this latest tangent is ticking all of them. The easy solution would be just to break up with him, and fucking stay broken up this time. But Jackie won’t do that. And she will treat such a suggestion as utterly scandalous, especially from Shauna. It’s all so asinine and stupid. Einstein’s ‘Insanity’: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Shauna is also guilty of this, because she listens every time. And every time she hopes that maybe this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, that makes Jackie realise she can’t force herself to like him. So she is equally stupid, clearly.
The current Jeff agony, one of the most recurrent as their teenage years entered twilight: he is not good at kissing nor touching Jackie.
Shauna has been kissed and touched by Jeff. And although she hates to admit it, and would not do so at gunpoint, he actually wasn’t awful at it. Not that it mattered to her at all. She didn’t fuck him because he wasn’t awful at it, that was just a bonus. No, she fucked him because of Jackie. The depths of this she is still trying to untangle, to make sense of her own feelings in her journal and the like, but this she knows for certain. She’s consciously opted to pin it on resentment towards the frustration with the control Jackie exerted over her which suffocated every aspect of her life. Which, yeah, it’s partially that.
But if that were totally the case, the lingering scent of her perfume on his shoulder wouldn’t have turned her on so much. And as she neared climax it wouldn’t have been the thought of Jackie’s reaction that got her off.
Still, he wasn’t awful at it; the problem is Jackie.
All of this is a dangerous train of thought, so she crashes it. She dips back into half-listening as Jackie talks in circles, picking up a hairbrush and absentmindedly running it through her hair just to have something to do, some kind of stimulating sensation.
“-And I don’t know. I think he’s just really bad at it, but high school boys always are. What do you think, Shauna?”
Shauna has to refrain from rolling her eyes. Jackie is making fun of her. To her knowledge, Shauna hasn’t been with any boys. To her knowledge, she is the one they look at, that they dream of touching, and Shauna just trails along beside her, a cute little accessory.
Shauna hates that. She’s not ‘cute’.
What Jackie doesn’t know is that Shauna’s had sex with one boy, and kissed three. What she especially doesn’t know is that she has also kissed one girl, and that she also looks at and dreams of touching Jackie like boys do. None of this would fit the image and the expectations Jackie creates for her.
“I don’t know,” she says tiredly, turning to the mirror as she untangles a particularly stubborn knot. Her hair is too long for her liking right now. And, because she’s feeling brave as well as particularly bitter tonight, she adds on: “Don’t make fun of me.”
“Huh? I’m not.” Shauna watches Jackie behind her reflection, faux-sweet and fluttering her eyelashes. As much as this is annoying, she doesn’t really like looking at herself, and it’s a distraction. Regarding her appearance tends to make something twang loosely inside her like the broken string on the guitar in the back of her wardrobe she hasn’t played since eighth grade.
“Whatever,” she mutters.
Jackie rights herself from her more relaxed position, sitting now cross-legged. “I just wanted your opinion. No need to be an ass about it, plenty of guys would like you if you gave them a chance.”
Shauna huffs. She doesn’t care about whether guys like her. She cares that Jackie is making fun of her. Ultimately, though, she doesn’t care about this conversation, and she’d rather talk about something that passes the Bechdel test.
Not that Jackie would know what that is.
She sits there, staring at Shauna, nonverbally demanding further explanation for her short fuse. Which Shauna gives into because she always does.
“We’ve talked about this a million times, Jackie. I’m just bored of it, that’s all.”
“I know,” says Jackie, the sympathy in her voice suprisingly poignant. “It’s just that I was talking to Mari today and she said she likes it when her boyfriend puts his tongue in her mouth. I thought they weren’t supposed to do that, that it was the wrong way, but…”
Shauna scrunches her face up. “That’s Mari. She’ll spread her legs for anything that gives her attention.”
“True,” Jackie snorts. But then her voice shrinks into something smaller, sadder. “I guess I’m just worried that something’s wrong with me.”
And now she’s fishing for compliments. This has all been such a Jackie Taylor cliche. Really on brand. Shauna could be mean. She could tell her the truth that she is, in fact, the problem.
But she won’t. Of course she won’t.
“Jax, don’t be stupid. He’s probably just shit at it. If you hate it that much then break up.”
Jackie opts to ignore the last comment in favour of seeking yet more validation. “But what if I’m shit? He’s the only guy I’ve ever been with, and we just got back together after a big break. I’m kinda out of practice.”
Shauna’s breath hitches. She stops, puts down the hairbrush on her dresser.
Practice is a loaded word.
She suddenly becomes very invested in the conversation. Practice is something that they sometimes do, or did. Not for a long while now, enough to give Jackie plausible deniability that she might have forgotten about it. The first time, they were fourteen and it was the summer before freshman year.
Shauna knew that night that the only way to get out of Jackie’s control would be to put a thousand miles between them. She had that night in her head with a sense of liberation and also loss as she sent off her early application for Brown just a short while ago.
Throughout freshman year, they practiced a couple more times. And then Jackie got with Jeff. He was the real thing, so naturally it stopped. Twice in sophomore year, then never since.
The real thing. Old rage rears its head in Shauna. The notion infuriated her. Wasn’t it real when she and Jackie were doing it? Wasn’t it still the same connection between two people?
“Practice?” Shauna echoes, her voice a little hoarse.
“Yeah,” breathes Jackie, airy with the formation of an idea, and also a faint nostalgia. No doubt the same idea she’d had before. That Shauna had before she could even put a name to it like ‘practice’.
“Hey, you remember how we used to…?”
Like she could ever forget. “I remember,” Shauna says cautiously.
“We didn’t have a clue at all back then,” Jackie reminisces. This was true. It had mostly consisted of clumsy pecks and shy presses of lips. In sophomore year they had kissed once properly, and it was the last time they did it.
Maybe that was another reason why they had stopped.
But what’s Jackie trying to get at now, then?
“Come sit here,” Jackie says, patting a spot on the bed beside her. Shauna’s practically shaking. Surely not. Surely this isn’t going to actually happen.
She sits.
“I just… want you to tell me if you think I’m bad at it.”
Oh. It’s happening.
Jackie’s leaning in before Shauna has time to use her better judgement and stop this. Jackie cups her cheeks and presses their lips together. As far as Shauna can tell, it’s a good kiss, but she’s as biased a source as anything. Her brain turns to TV static with Jackie’s face burnt into the screen.
“I don’t think you’re bad,” she whispers.
“How can you be sure? That was barely anything.”
“It wasn’t?” Shauna’s voice cracks embarrassingly. She has to be dreaming. No way sober, eighteen-year-old Jackie Taylor would kiss her. Let alone kiss her again. Jackie’s quest for validation was going too fucking far. That’s all this was. It had to be.
“No. I don’t think this is… I don’t think this is a proper scientific investigation.”
Shauna laughs, utterly confused, still giddy. “Whatever the fuck that means.” Jackie is barely passing science. What the hell does she know about scientific method?
“I mean how can I know if I’m actually bad if we’re both girls?” She says it so lightly. It’s a forced lightness. She probably can’t let herself think about it on any deeper level.
Shauna doesn’t get it. “What difference does that make?”
“It’s just different.” Jackie’s brows are furrowed in thought. She genuinely believes this, and is actually trying to find a solution. Shauna stares incredulously. Guys and girls felt just the same to her, although maybe girls smelt a little better. But mouths didn’t differ. They were just a body part.
But if it’s different to Jackie, who’s better? Shauna wonders dangerously. She feels in thinking this as if she is standing on the edge of a cliff.
“What do you want me to do about that?” Shauna says, still confused, a little irritated. It wasn’t as if there was anything she could do.
Was there? She swallows. Something about where this is going sets her teeth on edge.
Jackie’s face suddenly lights up. She’s solved the problem somehow. There’s a sudden drumming in her chest, and for an inexplicable reason, she feels nervous as all hell.
“You could be the boy,” Jackie says.
Everything stops.
Her stomach churns. Her head spins. That giddy thing inside her roars to life like a leaf blower. She imagines re-stringing a guitar. She imagines playing something Nirvana on it, flicking a glance to the picture of Kurt Cobain above her bed.
“What?” Shauna whispers, eyes wide.
“Yeah, yeah, I think this could work,” Jackie says, smiling, still totally lost in whatever nonsense plan she’s putting together in her head. She gets to her feet. It might be nonsense for her. But to Shauna, there’s something else in it. She can’t quite place it. You could be the boy. Shauna’s bizarrely excited to see what Jackie’s going to come up with. The boy. That’s a song by the Smashing Pumpkins. She could play that on her guitar. That string, she could put it back in place. Or Jackie could do it for her, maybe she has, maybe she is.
You could be the boy. She’s strangely turned on right now.
Jackie’s going through her clothes rack. She’s picking out a garment every few articles she wades through. They aren’t clothes she has ever, ever picked out before, in fact Shauna is pretty sure she has actively condemned all of them. A black, baggy Tori Amos t-shirt. That makes your tits look flat. Blue straight-leg jeans. I can barely see your hips in those. A burgundy flannel. You’re gonna end up matching with Randy when we get there.
The sports bra she wears for soccer.
There’s a pattern. An enthralling one. Jackie never lets Shauna dress like this, she only gets to do it when she’s alone. And now she presumably wants her to. What the hell was going on? Was this a fever dream?
“Put these on.” Jackie chucks them into her lap. Shauna is frozen. She looks at the clothes, dumbfounded, and looks at Jackie, then back at the clothes again.
Jackie cocks her head expectantly, and crosses her arms.
She wants me to..?
They’ve changed in front of each other before, of course. But this is not the same. Surely Jackie must sense that - the crackle in the air between them she has created. Her face doesn’t betray much other than impatience.
“Jackie, this is weird,” Shauna murmurs, unsure what kind of emotion is even coming through in her voice.
“Just… let me test this.” Jackie looks almost shy, deploying those big wide eyes and fluttering eyelashes of hers.
How could she say no? Does she even want to say no?
Shauna pulls her pyjama shirt over her head, maintaining eye contact. Undoing the buttons would be too slow. Thankfully, she is still wearing a bra, as it wasn’t in their plans to go to sleep yet for another couple hours. If she hadn’t been, this might have been too charged for her to do it without giving herself away. Even so she’s fighting to keep her breathing in check. And there’s an embarrassing heat continuing to coil in her gut.
She reaches into her lap and picks up the sports bra, remembering it suddenly. Fuck. She is… that is happening, then.
And there she sees Jackie’s mask of indifference slip. It’s just the slightest twitch of her mouth. Half a breath hitched in her chest.
But Shauna sees it. And it’s enough for her to know.
They are both pretending not to be stupidly turned on by this.
She scoffs involuntarily. Half amusement, half disbelief. Jackie’s better at faking it than her; she always was. So this isn’t fair. It’s just a power play she has devised to watch Shauna squirm, to assert her own control. And Shauna’s starting to squirm alright. But it’s not because of that. Jackie doesn’t have the full picture, even if she thinks she does. That was what all this had to be about, what she was getting off on. Shauna being her little lapdog, her little doll to dress up and play with.
“What?” Jackie whispers, sounding indignant, but with fear in her eyes.
Huh? Surely that had to be the case. She must know what she’s doing at least to some extent. What is she scared of? She has the power. She always has the power.
Does she? Shauna pokes the bear. “Turn around, you creep,” she teases, reaching for her bra clasp.
Jackie’s face reddens, and she spins on her heel, as if she had forgotten that would be the normal thing to do if this situation was, in any capacity, normal. She is stiff and upright the whole time that Shauna pulls away the fabric and lets it drop on the floor. It’s intoxicating. Shauna’s in the lead now. She shuffles into the sports bra agonisingly slowly, watching Jackie fight against any reaction, her fingertips twitching. Then the Tori Amos tee. Shauna likes wearing sports bras, but Jackie always notices when she’s left it on after practice.
Jackie turns back around. And Shauna’s hold over her evaporates. She’s regained her composure, put back on the front.
She studies Shauna, scrutinising with a sly smirk. Shauna looks away. She couldn’t tell whether this push and pull between them was getting old or if it was intoxicating.
She watches intently as Shauna slides down her pyjama shorts and slips them from around her ankles, and then pulls on the jeans. She’d brought these from the men’s section secretly after Jackie ran into one of her mom’s friends in American Eagle. Shauna is losing the fight of regulating her breathing. Jackie might as well be stripping her right now the way she’s looking at her, even though she’s actively putting more clothes on.
Finally there’s the flannel. It makes her feel slightly less exposed, as she wears this more often than the rest. Flannel is the one trespass out of the mainstream for girls in Wiskayok that Jackie tended to allow her.
Shauna sits fully clothed feeling like a nude model.
Jackie’s discerning eye doesn’t let up. She puts her thumb to her chin and the corner of her mouth curls, looking Shauna up and down. Then she jerks her head up a little which tells Shauna she wants her to stand.
So she does. Jackie steps closer. Reaches out, takes the flannel in her hands. She buttons it all the way up. Shauna can’t move. Jackie curls her fingers into the collar, adjusts it a little, smooths it down. Her movements are assured but there is a slight tremor in her hands. She cuffs the sleeves, and rolls them up to Shauna’s elbows, before she draws back.
“Yeah, that’s good,” she mutters, mostly to herself. Then she looks to Shauna, that ‘eureka’ expression lighting up her face again. “Wait there,” she orders. And then she leaves the room and Shauna hears her going down the stairs.
Slowly, tentatively, she approaches the mirror again. And she doesn’t hate what she sees. She sets her jaw, mean-mugs herself - then immediately feels stupid for doing so, but it had sparked an electric thrill in her. Everything sits loose, undefined. It’s as if someone had smudged the image - the girl she usually sees blurred at the edges. She really doesn’t hate it.
Normally she can’t stand it when Jackie picks outfits for her. But maybe she just hates the outfits that she tends to pick, because right now, knowing that Jackie had dressed her like this - had deliberately chosen each piece with a specific intention - fuck, her pants are wet. And they’re going to kiss soon, and Shauna’s going to be the boy, and now she looks the part.
She feels fucking insane. The door to her room creaks back open again, and Jackie’s standing there holding something small and glass which glints in the yellow lamplight. Jackie answers her question before she can ask.
“It’s cologne,” she says. “I was gonna give it to Jeff tomorrow to say sorry for dumping him, but…”
“That’s a stupid thing to be sorry for,” Shauna snarks despite herself.
“Exactly.” Jackie grins. And then, her voice dropping uncharacteristically shy, extends the bottle to her. “I want you to have it.”
Shauna takes it from her. The brush of their fingertips makes goosebumps raise on her arm. It looks semi-expensive, the bottle tinted a dark orange, probably one of the best she could find at the local drugstore. She sprays it on her wrists, then presses her wrists behind her ears and the back of her neck. It’s equal parts smoky and sweet, sandalwoody, but maybe vanilla or something as well. She decides she likes it. It smells like what she would imagine herself as a guy to smell like - honestly not that far off from the perfume she does occasionally wear.
Jackie laughs suddenly, narrowing her eyes. “You actually do kinda look like a guy if I squint. Oh my God.”
Shauna’s knees nearly buckle. She feels her stomach turn, not quite disgust, not quite thrill. “You’re insane.”
Jackie has no idea how cruel she is being. Or maybe she does. Maybe she’s seen this… anomaly, in Shauna, this broken string, and she’s just toying around with it - seeing where it can get her, what she can do with it. But that seems low, even for her, Shauna has to admit. More than likely she was just playing a stupid game. She didn’t realise how high she had inadvertently raised the stakes.
Jackie sits back down on the bed like before. “Okay. If you were a guy, how would you kiss me?” she asks, all wide eyes and false innocence. Shauna’s throat goes dry. This feels like a trap now, but she steps closer and sits next to her anyway. Jackie’s face is expectant, ready. There’s a fresh coating of gloss on her lips, probably the strawberry one that they’ve agreed tastes the best. Fuck. Admittedly, Shauna does really want to kiss her.
“I don’t know,” she says, balling a fist into the quilt. “How am I supposed to know?”
Jackie giggles - the sound is half-mocking, half-invitation. She laughs like this with guys that she flirts with to get smokes or free drinks. It’s a laugh that says, this isn’t anything serious. We’re just having a little fun. Come play with me.
“Aw, c’mon. I believe in you, Shaun.” She gives Shauna a playful shove in the arm. Then her hand slides back into her shirt collar as if she’s checking a costume for accuracy. The scent of her perfume is something floral, chemical. Shauna imagines how it will mix with the cologne as they kiss and the thought gives her a solid hit of dopamine.
There’s a pulse in Shauna’s ears. The name makes something ignite in her. Without thinking, she leans in, and she holds Jackie by the jaw and takes. That’s what guys always do, they just presume they can have whatever they want. So for that moment Shauna lets herself imagine the things she wants - usually so unattainable, wisps of smoke - taking shape in front of her. She’s not soft or gentle about the kiss - their teeth clack, their foreheads knock, and a quiet gasp catches in Jackie’s throat.
She pulls back and laughs breathlessly. Then throws her arms around Shauna’s neck. “Okay, okay,” she says, eyes bright. “Now that’s what I’m-”
Shauna doesn’t let her finish. Not because she’s bold, but because she’s terrified if Jackie names whatever this is, it’ll vanish.
So they kiss again, and this time Jackie’s returning the favour with as much energy. She moves closer so that she’s practically straddling Shauna’s lap, then moves to wrap her legs around her waist. The thought of Jackie kissing any other guy like this infuriates her. Other guy?
Shauna opts to pay this no mind now that this jealous animal in her has been awoken. She has to make Jackie think it’s a Jeff problem, or at least just that she likes kissing Shauna so much more. Either way the outcome would be her turning to Shauna instead to satisfy herself. And she wants nothing more right now than to satisfy her. Jackie didn’t like it when Jeff kissed her with tongue. But what about Shauna?
She slips it past her parted lips.
And Jackie honest-to-god moans.
She doesn’t think she has ever been prouder of anything in her life. She could hear that sound on repeat for ever and ever and never get bored. Jackie pulls herself closer, their hips pressing together now, and kisses her with a renewed hunger, teeth grazing her lip a little. What else do boys do? Shauna kisses down the length of Jackie’s neck, and Jackie is clearly into it as she buries her fingers into Shauna’s waist, but she huffs out, “No hickeys, okay?” just as Shauna starts to suck a little harder.
And she’s reminded what all of this is. A game. Shauna can’t - doesn’t - have her like this, and she probably never will again. It’s all just pretend for the other girl. But for Shauna, this is the realest anything has felt to her in so long.
She has to make the most of it, she resolves.
As she pulls away to catch her breath, Jackie grins. “It must be a Jeff problem,” she says, sounding sort of relieved. “Because I’m liking kissing this guy.” It’s too sincere. Her pupils are blown black against the whites of her eyes.
“Yeah?” Shauna breathes, bizarrely desperate for the confirmation.
“Yeah,” confirms Jackie. “You- you’re pretty convincing at this, Shauna.”
Those two clauses seem to contradict each other. “Don’t call me that right now,” Shauna says, which is weird, because it’s literally her name. But then they’re kissing again, harder, and that’s more important. And if she’s being the boy, she can probably start touching, too - in fact, that’s probably overdue. Experimental in mind but not in physicality, Shauna palms at Jackie’s chest, which draws out another sound from her for Shauna to savour. Her hips rock against nothing between Shauna’s crossed legs. This is a problem she needs to fix. She wants to feel Jackie against her so bad.
So she takes a hold of Jackie’s abdomen, and guides her so that she’s lying back on the bed. All the while they’re still kissing. Then she shoves a thigh between her legs and she lets out a high whine. She’s very responsive. Shauna’s always been quieter about these things, so it’s a nice contrast, and plays into whatever this dynamic is between them.
Now Jackie’s kissing her neck, and she’s sucking hard. So the no evidence rule only applies to her - typical. Regardless: finally she has something to rock against, so she does. And Shauna can feel that she’s wet.
A surge of excitement courses through her. This could be more serious, then. It won’t be such a game if Shauna actually makes Jackie come - or in the very least, she feels like she’ll have won. This is something she can have power over.
“How does Jeff touch you?” she says, and her voice is oddly foreign to her. “We can test that too.” It’s low and raspy, and lends itself well to the part she’s playing. Or the part that Jackie thinks she is. Shauna doesn’t feel like a girl pretending to be a guy kissing Jackie, really - she just feels like herself.
“Yes, yeah,” Jackie says. “Touch me like a boy.” And then she’s taking Shauna’s wrist and placing it against the seam of her shorts and this has to be a dream. She has to be dreaming. She has had dreams like this before. Shauna doesn’t dream of being a guy, but usually something closer to one. And right now she is closer, she thinks, and it sure feels like a dream come true.
“What, rub your inner thigh and keep asking if you like that?” Shauna teases, kind of delirious.
Jackie laughs and playfully smacks the back of her head with little force. She runs a hand through Shauna’s hair and pushes it back, tucking it behind her ears. “Nah,” she says. “This guy would know what he was doing down there, I think.”
Shauna’s chest swells with pride. “He would?”
“Yes. Now, please-” The pitch of her voice is kicking up another octave. She shifts her core against Shauna’s hand and groans, still gripping her wrist and using it to put more pressure on herself. Shauna could pull back right now and end this. She could leave her reeling, and watch Jackie grapple with her arousal, left high and dry, and see what she’s done to her. That would be almost as gratifying as getting her there.
But it’s not what this kind of guy would do. Shauna kisses Jackie’s collarbone and sternum as her fingertips ghost the waistband of her shorts. Jackie’s being whiny and demanding as always, won’t stop palming at her wrist. So Shauna catches it, brings it up, pins it against the headboard. She’s stronger than Jackie by quite a lot. This only appears to turn Jackie on more as she continues writhing, searching for stimulation.
Shauna rolls her eyes. “So needy,” she sighs, finally pushing past the bounds of Jackie’s underwear with her other hand. Jackie mewls loud under her, both responding to the physical contact and the demeaning comment. She’s fucking sodden. Was this the effect Shauna had on her? Or was it just the performance she was - supposedly - putting on?
She was never really a good actress.
She starts by making tight circles around Jackie’s clit, which is definitely working for her. She’s bucking and thrusting and gasping like a cat in heat, her arms clinging to Shauna’s back - she’s scratching like one too. She arches up and kisses Shauna’s jawbone, tracing it with her eyes. And she doesn’t have to say what she’s thinking. Shauna’s always been fond of her strong jaw. She groans at the contact. “You look- so good like this,” Jackie gasps.
And this catches Shauna off guard. She wasn’t expecting to be referred to as herself during any point of this. Surely that would break the - illusion? Is it even an illusion? The lines between herself and this male persona Jackie was putting on her were already blurred, but now she can’t really see them at all. It’s making her pulse between the legs. She muffles a moan against a kiss to the crook of Jackie’s shoulder.
‘Like this’ could mean any number of things, and it’s making her head spin. Did she look good on top of her? Fucking her? As a boy - hell, fucking her as a boy?
She doesn’t even want to ask. The ambiguity makes it so much better, her constant appetite for Jackie’s approval for a moment sated as she chooses to take every possible compliment at once. And honestly, the fucking reverent look on her face, Jackie might mean them all too.
Shauna decides to reward her for her flattery. She ghosts her middle finger at Jackie’s entrance, and then dips inside with just the very tip. Jackie whines loud, almost crying. Shauna has never been more grateful for having a single mom that works night shifts. “Say it,” she coaxes Jackie, shifting her index finger to join the first as well. “Say what you want.”
“In me,” Jackie cries desperately. “Please, Shauna, fuck.”
“I said don’t call me that.”
“Shaun, Shaun, please, please.” Jackie’s words are buried in Shauna’s neck as she pulls her down closer on top of her so that their bodies are flush. Shauna kisses the tops of her shoulders. Jackie’s arms are so tight around her. She’s also tightening elsewhere - her body begging for closure.
At last Shauna decides to oblige. She has sufficiently savoured this, she thinks. She shoves her fingers all the way inside, hard enough that it would probably hurt if she wasn’t so slick, and does what she has done to herself thinking of Jackie more times than she can count. Jackie’s gasping and moaning wet heat onto her skin. And Shauna can read her like a book, knows that it’s coming.
And it does. Jackie pulses around Shauna’s fingers with a loud cry, her body convulsing. Shauna runs her other hand soothingly through Jackie’s hair, and continues to kiss her collarbone. Jackie’s breath starts to slow, and she relaxes back into the sheets from where she was arching.
Shauna gives her probably the softest kiss on the mouth yet, then rolls off of her to lie down at her side. They both lay panting for a minute. Then Jackie breaks the silence.
“Okay, it’s definitely a Jeff problem.” She chuckles, almost disbelieving. “I’ve never not faked it with him.”
This isn’t new information to Shauna, but there is so much more weight to it now than there ever has been. And she still has so many questions about all this, despite the fact she hasn’t even gotten off herself yet. Is Jackie that selfish? She’s the one acting all boylike now, putting her own pleasure above-
Jackie turns to look at Shauna. Her voice is soft, a little nervous. “Do you want me to…”
Shauna nods heavy. Jackie smiles. She moves to undo the button on Shauna’s jeans. “Guys like handjobs,” She says, somewhat absentmindedly.
But that sends a bolt of lightning through Shauna’s already aching core. She hums her affirmation, and then takes Jackie’s lips between her own again as Jackie slips her hands under Shauna’s underwear. This won’t take long at all, she’s already so worked up. But while she doesn’t moan like Jackie does, she retains her grip on the English language a little more, and wants to hear it.
There’s three words that if she heard them from Jackie would get her off instantly.
But that would be too revealing for this game they’re playing, this game that’s coming to a close now. Too real. So she doesn’t ask. There are other things she could hear that would help her, anyway.
Jackie’s circling her clit kind of clumsily and erratically, but it doesn’t matter. That heat which has been building all night is coming to a head and it won’t take much to push her over the edge. “Tell me- tell me something about me being a guy,” Shauna whines.
Jackie looks at her all weird and intense for a second. Her stomach drops. But then the expression melts back into hazy arousal, and Jackie says, “You make a really hot one.”
Shauna cries out, bucking up against her fingers, hands in Jackie’s hair. She’s so close. “I mean, if you actually were one, I’d probably be with you instead of Jeff,” Jackie says. It’s way too earnest, and there’s something distant, longing in it. This definitely isn’t a game anymore.
“Say that again,” Shauna gasps. It’s so close to what she really wants to hear.
“I’d rather be with you,” Jackie says.
Shauna breaks like a dam in a tsunami. She groans loud and her face burns and her hips jerk erratically around Jackie’s hand. The pleasure that rolls through her is so potent; she crosses her legs hard, savours it.
She lets out a deep breath. Jackie kisses her.
“Jesus. You come like a boy, too,” she says with amusement. “That was like, thirty seconds.”
“You’ve been teasing me all night,” Shauna complains. Then she blanches, realising her carelessness. She’s just admitted all that before was turning her on. Clarity hits her like nausea. For some reason, she’s terrified with the thought that she’s gonna find out. She’s gonna find out.
Find out what, though? She can’t even place it.
And anyway, the crisis seems to have been averted. Jackie pulls Shauna’s arm over her, curls up against her, and she fits nicely there, like a girl might fit in a guy’s arms. “You gonna climb out the window now, make me sleep alone?” she jokes, a little weakly.
“Nah,” says Shauna. “That’s not the kind of guy I am.”
Jackie smiles. Kisses her one more time. They lie like that for a while, and then she gets to her feet, goes to the bathroom to get ready for bed like normal.
Shauna does too.
It’s over.
She curses herself for hoping that any of this would last. Only Jackie could make having sex not be something that lasts, and has no impact on anything between them other than Shauna’s mental state. And the whole guy thing, that’s going to cause problems, too.
Jackie probably just did it not to face the fact that Shauna wasn’t one. Maybe to give herself an excuse to justify the whole affair. How was she meant to know that Shauna would get off on it so much?
It’s a mess of things neither of them want to unpack. The best bet really would be to just move past this, wouldn’t it? For once, Shauna is on Jackie’s side.
She puts back on her silk pyjamas.
It’s strangely devastating.