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Spent and panting, Carol rolled out from underneath Zosia. She didn’t want to think too hard about what she had just done. Silence filled the room as she stared up at the ceiling. The thought of looking over at Zosia was too much, so she stayed in place. With Helen gone, intimacy was something she never thought she’d experience again. Helen was the only one she had slept with in over two decades. Carol almost didn’t remember what it was like to have to learn a new person’s body. She’d never admit it to herself, even in the privacy of her own mind, but it was a welcome distraction from the loneliness that had consumed her lately.
Finally, Carol let herself glance over at Zosia. She had been too respectful to let her gaze linger when they undressed together for massages, then too ravenous to notice much during their first round. Her eyes roamed the gentle curves of Zosia’s back, taking it all in like it was her only chance. For all she knew, that could have been the case. She reached out and trailed a finger up the ridges of Zosia’s spine, stopping when she brushed up against rough scar tissue.
Her heart dropped into her stomach. She had given Zosia these scars. Pulled the pin on a grenade like a moron and blew her right up. Zosia had responded by jumping on top of her to protect her from the blast. The sharp pang of regret caused Carol to physically wince. She ran her finger over the scar again, then leaned down and replaced it with her lips. Zosia let out a soft moan as Carol kissed the length of her scar.
“Carol…”
Carol moved her lips over to the second scar lower down on Zosia’s back. The salt of her skin tasted like heaven. Her lips continued to trail downward, stopping at the edge of the sheet haphazardly covering Zosia’s ass.
“I’m sorry about the grenade,” said Carol. “I really could have killed you.”
Zosia rolled over onto her back, treating Carol to an eyeful of her bare breasts. Carol’s gaze was immediately drawn there, coming to settle on kiss-swollen pink nipples still standing at attention. Zosia broke into a brilliant grin. She reached out to grab Carol’s arm, letting her thumb rub along her tricep.
“We forgive you, Carol.”
Carol sighed. There was that word again. We. She bristled every time Zosia said it. We, us, our. Zosia knew she didn’t want to hear that shit. She had made that crystal fucking clear. Getting angry at Zosia wasn’t an option, so Carol tempered herself and instead just flashed a small frown.
“We’re glad we came back and got to have such a wonderful night with you,” Zosia continued, still smiling. “We loved the sex.”
Carol couldn’t let that go. She rolled her eyes.
“Stop saying that. We didn’t love the sex. Only Zosia felt it. The rest of you voyeurs just knew it was happening, remember?”
Zosia’s sunshine angel grin faltered.
“Did that upset you?”
“Yes! I have repeatedly asked you to stop referring to yourself with plural pronouns.”
“We— Um, she’s sorry.”
“God, really?”
“I mean, I’m sorry,” said Zosia, looking up at Carol with doe eyes. “Please understand that this feels strange to say.”
“I know,” replied Carol. “But it would make me happy if you actually tried.”
“All we want to do is make you happy, Carol.”
“Well, you’re not doing a good job.”
Hurt clouded Zosia’s pretty face, but she recovered in a split second. She stretched her legs, pushing the sheet further down her body. Carol’s mouth went dry. She couldn’t look away from Zosia’s still-glistening cunt. Part of her wanted nothing more to drop the argument and bury her face down there again, but she had to stand her ground. All of the “we” talk was creepy.
“I think you can do better,” continued Carol. She let her fingers brush up against Zosia’s hip, dancing inward until she came to slick folds. “I think I can help you do better.”
Another moan tore out of Zosia. Carol let the wetness coat her fingertips and dragged them back over Zosia’s clit, causing her hips to buck. She started to trace lazy circles around it using just enough power to tease without giving Zosia what her body seemed to crave.
“Please, I… I want to do a good job,” whined Zosia.
“Yeah, I know. Biological imperative.”
Carol rubbed harder. Zosia drew in a deep, shuddering breath as she writhed underneath Carol’s touch. Desperate for more contact, she couldn’t keep her hips on the mattress. The sight brought a rare smile to Carol’s face.
“I want you to tell me a story from the real Zosia’s past. Anything you want. You have to refer to her in the first-person singular, though. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes, Carol,” said Zosia, punctuating her sentence with a moan.
“You can be a good girl and get through the whole story without any of that ‘we’ bullshit I’ve asked you to stop doing?”
“We promise—”
Carol clicked her tongue in disappointment. If Zosia was going to be back in Albuquerque, she was going to break this infuriating habit. An evil idea dawned on her as she glanced down at the intoxicating wetness between Zosia’s thighs. Before she could think too hard about it, Carol pulled her hand back and brought it down sharply on Zosia’s cunt. She had never done anything like that before. Zosia yelped but continued to lie there, docile and spread wide for Carol. Electric desire surged through Carol’s veins.
“If you say ‘we’ while you’re talking, you’ll get another one of those.”
“Sorry,” Zosia whimpered. “I can be a good girl.”
There was no doubt in Carol’s mind that she had left a new wet spot on the bed just from watching that. She bent down and kissed the spot she had just smacked. The heady taste of Zosia’s arousal gripped her, and she couldn’t resist pressing two more kisses there. Zosia moaned again and ground herself hard against Carol’s mouth. Unable to stand it any longer, Carol grabbed Zosia’s thighs and opened them wider, making room for herself. She let her tongue glide through the delicious wetness, lapping up as much as she could while Zosia threaded her fingers through her hair.
“Tell me a story about the real Zosia,” Carol demanded again.
“Ever since… I… was a little girl, I loved music,” Zosia began, stumbling over the singular pronoun but recovering before Carol could react. “Fun fact: MTV came to Poland in 1990! But my family was poor, so even after the country opened up, I didn’t have money to see a concert.”
Carol softened at the thought of a young Zosia dreaming of live music. She pulled her face back and looked up at her, but Zosia, lost in focus, didn’t meet her eyes. Recalling the individual memory seemed to take a lot of brainpower. But she was trying, just for her. Suddenly brimming with affection, Carol stroked Zosia’s thigh.
“When Zosia— oh!”
Carol spanked Zosia again as soon as she slipped into third-person. It felt strange because she hadn’t been dominant too often with Helen, but this seemed like a good way to break Zosia of that irritating speech pattern. Hearing her pained little whimpers ignited something long dead within Carol. Zosia felt even wetter beneath her touch as Carol rubbed the area she had just smacked. Her own clit throbbed at the way Zosia rutted against her hand.
“Wanna try that again?”
“When I was 18, Alanis Morissette came to Germany. After getting a passport, I couldn’t even afford a train ticket— forget tickets to the show. But I had to see her, so I hitch-hiked to Oberhausen with my best friend, Agata.”
That was better. Carol decided to reward her with another quick kiss just above her clit. Zosia gasped. Carol let her tongue brush up against the sensitive spot, then looked back up at Zosia, silently commanding her to continue the story.
“It was her idea,” said Zosia. “She was so bad.”
“You weren’t scared?”
“We were.” Zosia flinched and immediately clarified, “Agata and… I. We were scared, but we were also young and stupid.”
Carol decided to reward her commitment to “I” pronouns with another teasing lick. Unable to get enough of Zosia, she went back in for more. Sweet arousal coated her tongue as she dug her fingertips deeper into the soft skin of Zosia’s thighs, holding her in place on the bed. Zosia’s ragged breaths were almost as delicious as the juices filling Carol’s mouth. Carol swirled her tongue around Zosia’s clit and sucked on it lightly. Zosia squirmed, but Carol continued to hold her down.
“I made sure we only got rides from women. Now I know we were never in any danger, but at the time, we just had to trust them. Gdańsk is a ten-and-a-half hour drive from Oberhausen in normal traffic conditions, so it took three different drivers. We offered them cigarettes and pocket change.”
Of course Carol was glad nothing untoward happened to young Zosia and her friend, but she still wished she hadn’t included the detail about “knowing” now that they had been safe. This was supposed to be an exercise in sounding more human. Commentary about the current reality was most unwelcome. She debated spanking her again, then decided to let it slide.
“We didn’t have a plan for when we got to Oberhausen. We— No, I. This is so hard,” Zosia whined.
Carol’s eyes lit up at the excuse to continue breaking her of that awful habit. She brought her hand down sharply on the other woman’s pussy. The room was quiet except for Zosia’s cries and the sound of an open hand hitting wet skin. Zosia still made no move to do anything except take her punishment.
“Remember, you love to give me what I want, and what I want is for you to speak like a normal fucking person,” said Carol.
“Yes, Carol. Agata and I didn’t have a plan for when we got to Oberhausen.”
“Good girl.”
Carol rewarded her by diving back in. Zosia threaded her fingers through Carol’s hair, pulling lightly as Carol’s tongue fell back into its rhythm. This time, Carol let out an ear-splitting moan, muffled just a bit by Zosia’s dripping cunt.
“I thought we could pose as music journalists. I spent a few hours before the show making fake press passes, but my art skills were so bad, we almost got laughed out of the line. But then…” Zosia tried to stifle a laugh, which morphed into a desperate moan as Carol sucked on her clit. “A-Agata flashed the bouncer.”
That was not where Carol expected the story to go. She froze. Zosia was still trying not to laugh, and her amusement was infectious. Carol couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed. She was almost tempted but instead just smiled at Zosia.
“She was the most beautiful girl in Gdańsk, so of course it worked. She even told him she would meet him in private after the show, but instead, we shared a currywurst and started hitch-hiking home. It was one of the most wonderful nights of my life. Before the Joining, of course.”
Carol prickled at this description of Zosia’s friend. Why did she have to add that? Of course it worked. It would have worked even if she was ugly because men were pigs. She pulled her face back from Zosia’s pussy and looked up at her.
“Were you and Agata… you know?”
“No, never. She only liked men. She moved to New York to live with her aunt and uncle the year after that and eventually got married.” There was a hint of melancholy in Zosia’s voice that Carol couldn’t help but zero in on. “I was so heartbroken to lose her, but now she’s in here with me always.”
The fact that Agata only liked men wasn’t lost on Carol, but she didn’t dare confirm what that meant. Hope was a dangerous thing. Clinging onto it, onto the dream that some part of this was real, was all she had left. Zosia talked about this girl the same way Carol thought about Lori Sullivan, whom her mother had caught her kissing before Camp Freedom Falls. An unrequited crush from over 25 years ago didn’t necessarily have any bearing on how Zosia’s life turned out, but at least the story hadn’t been about a boy.
“What does she think of us doing this?” breathed Carol.
Zosia scrunched up her nose and said, playfully, “She thinks I could do better.”
“Hey! What the fuck?”
“Would you like to prove her wrong, Carol?”
Carol didn’t waste any breath on a response. She tightened her grip on Zosia’s thighs and went back in, devouring Zosia like she was her last meal. Do better? Not a chance in hell! Zosia had done a decent job with her story, so she deserved a little release anyway. Carol pressed her face harder against Zosia, letting her tongue dip into her entrance as she dragged it through the wetness. God, she had missed the taste of a woman. A gasping and whimpering Zosia writhed underneath her. She sucked on her clit again, applying steady pressure and letting the tension build, until Zosia finally came undone with a loud squeal. Carol was more than willing to go in for more, but she feared that overstimulating Zosia might kill another few million. Instead, she sat back and watched the beautiful woman underneath her come down from her climax. When Zosia finally opened her eyes, her face glowed with a warmth Carol had never seen on any of the other hive members.
“Thank you, Carol. This body—um, I— enjoyed that a lot.”
“You did a good job,” said Carol. “Solid attempt at sounding human.”
Zosia raised halfway up off the mattress as if she wanted a kiss. Carol obliged, moaning softly into her mouth as she caught her bottom lip again. Both of Zosia’s hands cupped her cheeks. Despite herself, Carol leaned into the gentle touch.
“Goodnight,” said Zosia before rolling over and wrapping herself up in the blankets.
The ache between Carol’s thighs was unbearable, but she wasn’t going to complain, even though Zosia would have taken care of it if she asked. If Zosia wanted to sleep, then she’d let her sleep. Carol settled back down on the other side of the bed, stealing some of the blankets from Zosia, and willed herself not to think about the fact that another woman was on Helen’s side of the bed.