Work Text:
beautiful, god your lips were holy
but you were always lonely, still
The clock has just barely nudged its way past midnight the first time Michelle walks in.
Willow has been working at the Midnight Mocha Diner for a little over three years now. It’s a dinky little place tucked away in one of the suburbs of New York City, in a neighborhood that’s half houses bordering on mansions and half houses that are on the brink of becoming condemned due to safety hazards. It’s also two bus stops and a subway ride away from her studio apartment that she can barely afford, but she gets decent tips when she’s the only server working the graveyard shift and the owner pays a tiny bit over minimum wage, so it’s good enough.
It’s a Tuesday night, which are usually slow save for the occasional student, insomniac, or houseless person stumbling in for a cheap coffee and a warm place to sit. Willow likes nights like these because she can usually take her sketchbook out and fill in a page or two with miscellaneous doodles or working on ideas for larger projects and assignments.
If anyone were to ask, she’d insist that she isn’t embarrassed about being in her mid-20’s and only just now starting college. Tuition is expensive and financial aid was only able to offer so much when she was dead set on going to an art school, so she needed time to work and save up money to cover what FAFSA won’t—but, admittedly, she does feel out of place in her classes, typically exhausted from her overnight shifts and surrounded by a bunch of 18-year-olds who are coasting on their parents money or student loans that’ll bite them in their asses down the line but make it so they aren’t working for the money to survive now like Willow is.
It’s good, being there, but it’s not exactly everything that she dreamed of.
There’s a lull once the clock hits 11:30, so Willow makes conversation with the graveyard chef, Benny, makes sure all the supplies are stocked, and then settles on a stool behind the counter with her sketchbook and a pencil. She keeps an eye and an ear out on people walking by, prepared to get up the second someone walks in, but no one does. Not for a while, at least.
The clock ticks. 11:40, then 11:45, then 11:55, then midnight.
As the hand strikes 12:02 AM, the door opens.
Willow looks up and, embarrassingly, feels her breath catch in her throat, eyes blowing wide and hand clenching around her pencil. Oh, shit, she thinks. Oh my fucking god.
The woman who walks in is—frankly, kind of a mess. She’s got black curly hair reaching about her mid-back that’s visibly tangled and frizzy, bangs curling over her forehead, random strands sticking out in various places, giving off the vibe of someone who’s just been electrocuted (in, somehow, a very cute and endearing way). A sweater that looks about three sizes too big and has some serious grandfather energy is slipping off her right shoulder, showing off her skin, a milky-pale land of freckles and the slightest flash of a collarbone, and she’s got on a pair of black skinny jeans that fit her perfectly.
It’s hard to tell if she’s wearing blush or if her face is flushed from the cold, late-night air outside, but either way her cheeks are rosy. Willow’s fingers twitch. I want to draw her.
She doesn’t. Instead, she glances down at herself and her usual work clothes, unflattering and covered with an old apron that’s faded and has a smattering of coffee stains. Great. Really, honestly, this is fine. Everything is fine. The hottest girl she’s ever seen just walked in while she looks like a fucking mess, but it’s okay. Not like she’d have a chance anyway.
Willow gives herself a moment to breathe through the very gay thoughts that are flooding her mind, closing her sketchbook and setting the pencil aside while the woman skims the room, spots the corner booth tucked off to the left, and heads right on over to plop into the seat with a sigh. Once she’s settled, Willow heads over, swiping up her notepad and a pen with one hand and a menu with the other, which she places on the tabletop once she’s near.
”Hi,” she says warmly, putting on her best customer service smile. “Welcome to the Midnight Mocha. My name’s Willow, I’ll be your server tonight. Can I get you something to drink while you look over the menu?”
The woman hasn’t looked up yet, busy rooting around in her bookbag with a frown, before she pulls out a laptop, a charger and a notebook. “Um,” she starts, finally glancing up with her frown twitching up into a polite smile, only to freeze for a moment when she sees Willow. It’s only a second, but it’s long enough for Willow to wonder if there’s something in her teeth, before the woman shakes her head once, sharply, and then lets out a tense laugh. “Oh, god, sorry. I’m just tired as hell. Um, can I just get a coffee for now? Please?”
Willow thinks she might be blushing. Which is stupid, really. This girl has only looked at her, for crying out loud—and barely, at that! “Yeah, absolutely. Anything else?”
”Um, not right now, no. Thank you.”
”Of course. I’ll be right back with that coffee.”
The woman smiles again, this time more warm and grateful rather than just polite. Willow thinks she feels eyes on her when she walks away, but she doesn’t look back to check.
When she comes back with a hot mug in hand, the woman has her hair pulled up and back in a mess of a ponytail and a pair of glasses have been pushed up the bridge of her nose, her laptop now opened up in front of her and charger plugged into the outlet beneath the table. She looks up with a smile when Willow settles the coffee on the table by her elbow, murmurs out the most gentle little, “Thanks,” before scooping it up and taking a sip.
Willow fights the urge to flinch. The coffee here is total shit and she’s well aware of that fact, has tried to ask the owner to get a new coffee maker, or even a Keurig, which would be infinitely better than the slop they currently serve, but the woman only gives a small frown at the taste before setting it down, looking not all that bothered.
And then she starts typing, and Willow—for some reason, Willow doesn’t walk away.
”Did you want any creamer or anything?” she asks, rocking back on her heels with her hands clasped behind her back. The woman glances up at her, lips twitching up slightly, and Willow unclasps her hands to gesture towards the other end of the table. “We have sugar and fake sugar and some creamer behind the counter, if you want any. I know the coffee here is total ass, so…”
The woman laughs—something soft and amused. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she says.
Willow smiles back, then glances at the open laptop and, unable to really help her curiosity (or the great big lesbian urge to talk to this pretty girl as much as she can hope to get away with), she tries for a casual tone and asks, “What are you working on? Are you in school or something?”
“Oh, no,” the woman says, laughing again, this time sounding a little bit more like a scoff as she shakes her head, the movement making her bangs shift around on her forehead. “No, uh—I write stuff? Like, um… books. Or, I’m trying to. I’m really bad at finishing stuff before losing motivation or moving on to something different, so I’ve never really finished anything, but I always thought I’d be published by the time I hit my mid-twenties, but now I’m 25 and haven’t even gotten close, so I’m trying to see if writing outside of my apartment will help.”
We’re the same age, Willow thinks, the delusional part of her brain sorting that onto a brand new list of reasons why this could somehow go in her favor. “That’s really cool,” she says, and she means it, even though her mind is elsewhere. “What kind of stories do you write?”
The woman is leaning her elbow on the tabletop, her palm curled around her chin as she rests it in her hand, and the angle makes it so her big, brown eyes are peering through her lashes to meet Willow’s gaze. “Fantasy is my go to,” she says. “But I sometimes write poetry and have tried out different genres and stuff, so it can really just depend on my mood.”
”Cool,” Willow says again, and then—then, she’s stupid, and she doesn’t think about the potential implications, and she asks, “What mood are you in right now?”
The woman’s smile grows, her eyes bright. “I guess we’ll find out,” she says, before ducking her head down with a little chuckle. “You, uh—you said your name is Willow, right?” Willow nods, gives a small little mhm, and then watches as the woman gestures vaguely at herself and says, “Michelle. It’s nice to meet you.”
Willow smiles. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” Then she remembers that she’s at work and needs to do her job, and she tries not to fumble too much as she pulls the notepad and pen from her apron pocket, face flushing slightly. “Did you, uh—did you—were you ready to order any food?”
Michelle giggles. Willow flushes even more. Her hand shakes a little as she clutches the pen, and when Michelle says that she’s fine, thanks, Willow is almost certain that there are eyes trailing after her as she sheepishly retreats back behind the counter.
She still doesn’t look. It’s probably better that she doesn’t know.
The second time Michelle comes into the diner is a couple of days later. Willow fumbles over her words and Michelle keeps smiling in a specific sort of way, and she ends up being there until well past four in the morning, before making a point of telling Willow to have a goodnight and leaving a tip that seems way too generous for just a few cups of crappy coffee.
The third time is about a week after the first. Largely, it’s about the same. They talk, and Willow stutters, and Michelle seems to lose track of her sentences while peering up at her (always through her lashes, which is starting to drive Willow crazy, honestly), and Willow has to keep telling herself to not look too hard into anything because she’s got horrible luck with these kinds of things, always meeting women who seem like they might be queer only for them to name drop their boyfriends or husbands. She can’t let herself think that Michelle will be any different.
Still, the vibe certainly feels at least a little flirty, and it’s hard for Willow to ignore that.
The fourth time Michelle walks in, Willow is in the middle of taking the order of an elderly woman that comes in every Thursday. Miss Butterfield has a heavy southern accent while somehow carrying the aura of a lady raised in Jersey, and Willow typically spends a long time just listening to the stories that she tells about her life with a little bit more awe than is strictly necessary, but Michelle showing up throws her completely off track.
Willow is reading back Miss Butterfield’s order when the door opens, and by instinct she glances over, only to stumble over her words real bad when she sees Michelle walking in—like, impossible to ignore kind of bad, choking on her syllables and making a strangled sound before managing to force her eyes away and clearing her throat. “Uh,” she says, avoiding looking at either Michelle or Miss Butterfield, even though she’s pretty damn sure that both of them are looking at her. “Sorry, just—you ever breathe in and choke on your own spit?” She flinches, then shakes her head, face flushing. “Sorry. That was gross. Forget that I said that. Uh—coffee, blueberry waffles with a cup of strawberries on the side, and the chocolate truffle cake, right?”
”You alright, honey?” Miss Butterfield asks, sounding genuine and concerned, but when Willow manages to drag her eyes back up, the woman is visibly amused, being way too obvious as she leans back in her seat to peer around Willow and peers over in Michelle’s direction.
”Yeah,” Willow croaks, her face burning. “Was there anything else you wanted, ma’am?”
Miss Butterfield leans forward again, her smile sly as she shakes her head. “No, honey, that’s all. Thank you.”
Willow ducks her head in a nod and scurries away, seeing that Michelle has claimed that same corner booth as before. She gives herself a few minutes to collect herself, waiting until the redness in her face has gone down and Miss Butterfield’s order is ready before walking back out, taking her food and coffee over first before steeling herself and making her way over to the corner, pen and notepad already in hand.
Michelle looks up when Willow approaches, and Willow doesn’t know what to expect, but she’s intrigued to see a blush climbing up Michelle’s neck as she quickly glances away, shrinking in on herself as she focuses her gaze on her open laptop screen. Willow’s steps falter slightly (why does Michelle look embarrassed? Willow’s the one that just made a fool of herself, yet Michelle’s face is quickly becoming as red as a god damn fire hydrant) but she pushes forward on slightly unsteady feet, grip tightening around her pen.
”Hi, welcome in,” she greets, managing to school her tone into her usual customer service voice, offering a smile that feels only a little bit off kilter. “What can I get started for you?”
It feels like it takes ten years for Michelle to look up at her, and even then, she can’t seem to meet Willow’s gaze, instead peering right over her shoulder with a tense smile that looks sheepish when paired with her bright red face. “Just, uh—just some coffee, please?”
Willow jots it down, even though she doesn’t need to. “Yeah, of course. Anything else?”
Michelle opens her mouth—falters, lips parted as her eyes slide over until their gazes properly meet, and then she seals her lips shut, shakes her head rapidly, and quickly looks back down.
The tips of her ears are bright pink where they peak out from her hair. Willow hesitates a moment, then gingerly says, “Let me know if you need anything else, okay?” and waits for Michelle’s nod before walking away. Half of her is concerned that something’s wrong—that her stupid reaction is making Michelle feel awkward or uncomfortable—but the other half of her is kind of just obsessed with how red Michelle’s face has already become. She finds herself staring from behind the counter, only looking away when Michelle glances her way, caught up in how Michelle’s body curves over her laptop, how her fingers move with familiar ease across the keyboard, how she chews on her pen before jotting down notes in an open notebook before going back to her laptop. She’s, honestly, unfairly attractive. I wonder how red she can get.
That thought makes Willow’s face burn and finally gain the strength to pull her focus away.
For a month and a half, Michelle comes to the diner at least three times a week.
Always after midnight. Always with her bookbag hanging off of her shoulder and an oversized sweater of some kind. Always with her notebook and a smattering of pens and highlighters that she chews on while she either jots something down or focuses on her laptop. Always typing furiously—when she isn’t talking to Willow, of course.
Which she does. A lot, actually. More than she probably should, since she said she’s coming to the diner in the middle of the night to focus on writing—but without fail, Willow ends up hovering by her table and talking, usually about nothing at all, for what feels like hours.
Michelle is easy to talk to, despite Willow’s internal gay panic and lesbian feelings. And with every late night visit, the conversation flows easier and easier.
Willow starts to hate the shifts where Michelle doesn’t show.
“Were you painting something?”
Willow pauses, her hand still outstretched, the plate of fries that Michelle ordered resting on the table top. She glances at Michelle, who is peering at her hand, and follows her gaze to find splotches of dried paint peaking out from under her sleeves, staining the skin on her wrist “Oh,” she says, pulling her hand back to herself with a soft laugh. “Yeah, uh—I’m an artist, actually. I was working on something earlier and lost track of time, so I guess I just—I don’t know, didn’t realize there was still paint on me.” She shrugs, then looks at the plate of fries again, and then quickly assures, “I washed my hands, by the way, I swear—”
There’s a small burst of laughter that Michelle lets out that sounds like it forced it’s way out, an involuntary mixture of a huff and a wheeze that’s followed shortly by a quiet snort as she shakes her head. “No, that wasn’t—I believe you, don’t worry. I just didn’t realize you were an artist. What kind of things do you make?”
A image flashes into her mind—a page in her sketchbook that she filled in yesterday with sketches of Michelle’s features, the curve of her lips and the furrow of her brows when she’s concentrating on her writing. Willow’s first thought had been about wanting to draw her and shes made good on that thought so far (and plans to continue to do so). But she can’t say that, so instead she just shrugs, rubbing at the dried paint until it starts to flake off and instead replying with, “Whatever feels right in the moment, I guess. I’ve done a lot of landscapes and portraits, I love drawing people but painting them is harder, but I’m getting better at it and want to keep working on it. It’s kind of… you said what you write depends on what mood you’re in, right?”
Michelle nods, though her eyes blow wide, looking vaguely surprised—like she didn’t expect Willow to remember something she said damn near two months ago now.
“Well, it’s like that, I guess,” Willow goes on, waving a hand vaguely once the paint has all been rubbed away. “What I make depends a lot on my mood, or on what inspires me in the moment.”
There’s a second of silence, and then Michelle smiles, a little lopsided and coy. “What’s been inspiring you recently, then?” she asks, and it takes a moment for Willow to realize she’s referencing what Willow had asked before, not in a cruel way but definitely with a teasing lilt to each word, and she feels a stupid betrayal of a blush climbing up her neck.
You, she thinks, that Michelle-filled page of her sketchbook flashing through her mind once more. “Spring,” she says instead, which isn’t really a lie.
Michelle blinks once, then twice, then curiously asks, “What about Spring is inspiring?”
“It’s, like, super symbolic and meaningful, actually,” she says, and for a moment she forgets that she’s supposed to be working, leaning her hip against the table top as she talks. “There’s so many ideas for what spring is and what it does depending on different cultures and mythologies, but in almost every one, it has to do with—like, renewal and regrowth. A lot of cultures actually consider spring to be the start of the new year, not January, because it’s about new beginnings and perseverance, the celebration of life and surviving another winter. Everything that died in the cold grows back in the warmth, you know? Even though it was all withered away and barren, it can still become bright and alive and beautiful again.”
For a moment, Michelle only stares up at Willow, and it’s the fault of the angle, really—of the fact that Michelle is sitting in the diner booth while Willow is standing besides it, but she keeps peering through her lashes in a way that makes Willow’s heart stumble in her chest. It’s not inherently enticing, necessarily, but with her instant attraction that has only managed to get stronger with every night that Michelle comes into the diner, Willow’s mind is helpless to do anything other than immediately think of other scenarios where Michelle would be looking up at her from this angle—with her lashes long and fluttering, her face flushed red and—
Stop that, Willow thinks to herself harshly, a lump forming in her throat. She can only hope that her thoughts aren’t somehow being projected onto her face right now, every ounce of her control being used to keep her features from so much as twitching.
”Maybe you should try writing,” Michelle finally says, letting out a breathless little laugh. “I’ve always been more of a fall girl, but that might have just made me like spring more.”
Willow ducks her head—still distracted by her train of thought, but trying not to let those thoughts linger. “Writing isn’t for me,” she dismisses easily. “I’m too hands on and visual for that. I know people can paint pictures with their words, but I prefer to just paint the pictures.”
Michelle shrugs, though her smile tilts into something a little bit more amused. “If you say so. Still, I knew that spring has a lot of regrowth symbolism, but how you explained it was really beautiful.”
“Thanks,” Willow says, shrugging a bit. “But, I mean—you’re actually a writer, though, right? You said that you’re trying to get published, and whenever you’re in here, you look like you’re getting a lot of work done. You’ve gotta be making a lot of progress, right?”
”Oh, uh—I mean…” Michelle trails off, looking a little embarrassed. She tilts her head back and forth, her nose scrunching up on her face. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, some. I’ve been jumping around a lot, and getting some new ideas that don’t work with what I already had, so it’s been a lot of, like… restructuring, I guess. So, a lot of new stuff, but a lot of old stuff has to get taken out for the new stuff to work, y’know? It doesn’t really feel like progress when I have less pages done now than I did a few weeks ago. Especially because what you just said about spring gave me another new idea for the story, but that means I have to backtrack some more to fit it, so…”
She doesn’t mean to be nosy, but she can’t help it right now, asking, “What’s your book about?”
Michelle’s face immediately burns another bright, brilliant red. By this point, Willow has accepted that the reaction isn’t a bad sign, and has started to become more and more attracted to how it looks, how the blush contrasts and compliments Michelle’s otherwise pale, nearly paper-white skin, the freckles creating constellations on her cheeks looking darker when surrounded by pools of deep pink and paired with dark brown eyes.
This is quickly turning into an obsession. Willow can feel it twisting up in her gut, growing into something that’s going to become hard to keep pushing down. In this moment, she doesn’t care.
“It’s—” Michelle stops, sinks her teeth into her lower lip. Willow stares at the indents left behind when, a few moments later, Michelle releases her lip and waves around a hand vaguely. “It’s a fantasy book,” she says. “It’s about a, um—a princess. And a knight who tries to save the princess only to realize that the princess doesn’t need to be saved. And, um… some other stuff.”
What Willow wants to say is, that sounds very straight.
She bites the words down with enough force to draw blood.
“Oh. Is it, like, a romantasy?” Willow asks, the word feeling clumsy in her mouth. “That’s what people have been calling it, right? The romantic fantasy genre, or whatever?”
“Uh…” Michelle trails off. She’s staring down at the table top, fiddling with a napkin like it’s the most interesting thing in the world, tearing it into little pieces and rolling those pieces into little napkin balls that pile up like someone preparing for a snowball fight. “It… is,” she eventually says, speaking slowly, almost as if she’s carrying caution with every word. “It wasn’t supposed to be. It was gonna be mostly just centered on the princess, and her proving her capability, you know? Making it clear that she doesn’t need anyone to protect her, that she can protect herself. I actually planned on making sure there was no romance at all and just focus on her as an individual, make it a story that’s mainly about female empowerment, and it still is, but—um…”
Willow doesn’t speak—just watches, a little bit fascinated, as Michelle’s head cocks slightly to the side, just enough for her hair to fall over her shoulders, falling down her back in frizzy curls that look soft to the touch. She’s wearing another sweater that looks like it’s from the 80’s, and it’s still a few sizes bigger than necessary, the excess fabric hanging low. As Michelle drags her eyes over, head tilting more to the side, her neck becomes more exposed, more visible, and in Willow’s attempt to not look at the expanse of soft skin there, she winds up looking at Michelle’s collarbones instead, peeking out from the low-hanging neckline of her sweater.
Her stomach swoops—a deep, dizzying feeling, one that leaves her swallowing thickly as her mouth fills suddenly with saliva. She manages, somehow, to look back at Michelle’s face, just in time for Michelle to meet her eyes, her teeth sinking into her lower lip again as she seems to ponder over her words for a minute. Then, speaking slow and careful, she continues, saying, “That’s one of the things I had to backtrack on. I got the idea to, uh—to add a love interest.”
“The knight,” Willow guesses. Michelle shakes her head. Confused, Willow falters for a moment before asking, “Then who?”
“I’m still not really sure yet,” Michelle admits. “But you just made spring sound so magical that it makes me want to incorporate that kind of magic into whoever she is.”
It takes a second longer than it should for Willow to process that full sentence, instinctively nodding along to Michelle’s words before freezing. Slowly, she replays Michelle’s words in her head, taking it syllable by syllable, until she lands on whoever she is.
Whoever she is?
”Like—” Willow’s voice cracks. She clears her throat, tries again. “Whoever the princess is?”
”No, the love interest.”
Oh. Willow blinks once, struggling to process. “The love interest… is going to be a she…?”
Now it’s Michelle who blinks at her, eyes going wide as she freezes completely. Her laptop is still open in front of her, hands hovering over the keyboard. “Um,” she says, sounding, suddenly, completely terrified, and Willow jolts as she realizes how her incredulousness might sound.
“I’m not judging! I’m not—I just didn’t think—I mean, I assumed it was—I assumed that you were, y’know, not like me, so I just thought it would—it would be, you know—oh god, I’m totally fucking this up right now, aren’t I?” With an embarrassed groan, Willow lowers herself to sit on the opposite side of the table, burying her face in her hands in an attempt to hide away and somehow make the entire conversation disappear. She only peeks through her fingers when she hears a soft laugh, so gentle and shimmery that she can’t help but to look, only to find that Michelle is already looking at her, that terrified look having melted into something more warm and fond. Muffled by her palms, Willow offers a sheepish, “Sorry. That was… um. Yeah. Sorry.”
From this spot—sitting across from Michelle, no longer standing over her at an angle—Willow can see a few stickers on Michelle’s laptop that she never noticed before. One of them, she realizes, is of a bee, only the stripes make up the lesbian pride flag, and in a cursive font just below it says Bee Yourself. It’s adorable, and it makes Willow feel even more idiotic because there’s been a pride sticker this whole time that could have clued her in if she had just seen it.
Just her luck, humiliating herself right when she realizes she could have had a real chance.
“It’s fine,” Michelle says, cheeks still a rosy red but smile wide, eyes glimmering. “Did you… I mean, I just—I don’t know, it’s not a big deal, I just thought I was being… kind of obvious…”
Willow doesn’t move her hands away, instead blinking wide-eyed at Michelle through the cracks of her fingers, voice still muffled when she asks, “Obvious about what?”
Michelle’s blush deepens. “Thinking that you’re, like, ridiculously cute.”
“Really?” Willow drops her hands, more out of shock than anything else.
“Yeah. Again, I thought I was being pretty obvious about that, but, uh… apparently not.”
Unable to help herself, Willow lets out a snort, shaking her head slightly. “No, you probably were, I’m just—I’m not—I’m used to, y’know… getting my hopes up and being proven wrong and then feeling really stupid, so now I assume there’s no chance so that I can avoid that, but now I’m feeling really stupid for the exact opposite reason. I like your bee sticker, by the way.”
“You’re not stupid,” Michelle is quick to say, to which Willow scrunches up her nose.
“You barely know me,” she deflects, and she means it in more of a jokingly dismissive way, but the words still ring true—sobering up the moment with a sharp, sudden reality check.
Michelle peers at her for a long moment, lips pressed into a thin line. “Maybe,” she admits a moment later. “But I know that you’re cute, and you work nights in this diner, and you’re an artist. And I want to—I mean, I’d like to learn more about you, too. If you… also wanted to…?”
Is this real? Willow opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. “Like, a—a date?”
“Yeah, if you’d like. Or just—like, 20 questions, if you don’t want to. I can bring a list of those ice breaker questions next time I come in. Or we could pretend I didn’t say anything about you being cute or asking you on a date. Whatever you want. And tell me to shut up if I’m talking too much because I know I sometimes have a problem with that, especially when I’m nervous, or when I’m trying to figure out a plot hole I accidentally caused, which actually happens a lot, so—”
“Shut up,” Willow says, and can’t help but grin at the way Michelle immediately seals her mouth shut and looks at her with wide, waiting eyes. “A date sounds nice. I’m kind of… I mean, I’m taking art classes every weekday and using this job to pay for what financial aid won’t, so I’m kind of busy and also definitely broke, so I don’t know when or where, but—yeah, I’d like that. I’d like to go on a date with you.”
Michelle smiles back, wide and toothy, face bright. “Well, now I know you go to art school, too,” she says. “And I asked you, so I’ll pay. What does your schedule look like next week?”
From: Unknown Number
hey
is this willow
did you give me a fake number
you didn’t give me a fake number right
this is going to be super embarrassing if you did
actually it might be embarrassing either way
this is michelle btw
from. the diner.
if that wasn’t clear
the one who asked you on a date?
i’ll shut up now
To: michelle (:
hi! yes this is willow, i did not give you a fake number, that is kind of embarrassing but in a cute way so it’s okay, and you didn’t need to clarify who you are so many times
why would i give you a fake number when I know you could just show up at the diner again?
also you don’t have to shut up (:
From: michelle (:
that’s not a thought that i had
but that’s a much more logical thought than the one i had
To: michelle (:
omg
what thought did you have??
From: michelle (:
never showing my face in public again
To: michelle
that’s … a little bit dramatic
From: michelle
i have been told i should have been a theater kid so that fits
anyways!
our date!
you’re sure that friday works for you? because it’s okay if it doesn’t, i work from home and have pretty flexible hours so i can make any day work, i just threw friday out as an idea
To: michelle
yes i’m sure! my friday classes are done by 2 and i don’t have a shift that night
what were you thinking about doing?
From: michelle
have you heard of the clay cafe
To: michelle
no
is it a coffee shop?
From: michelle
yes! and also something else
you’ll like it
i mean you can look it up first if you want obviously it doesn’t have to be a surprise i just really think you’re going to think it’s cool and it being a surprise might be kind of fun
you can ignore that i said that if you want
here’s the address [link]
does meeting at like 4 works? does that give you enough time?
To: michelle
4 is perfect (:
see you then?
From: michelle
um no
see you tomorrow
i’m almost done with this chapter and need to go to the diner to lock in and get it done
and also see you
obviously
The thing is, Willow has been on dates before.
Before she finally had enough money saved up to start attending her classes, she had a much more open schedule than she does now. She worked more to make as much as she could, but when she wasn’t at work or driving to visit her mom or her siblings or building her portfolio for her eventual application, she didn’t have anything else to take up her time.
So, she frequented a lot of small stores, found herself talking to people way more than she ever thought she’d be comfortable with when she was growing up, and somehow, every once in a while, got asked out or asked someone out who actually said yes.
Because of that, she’s not entirely out of her depth.
But that doesn’t mean that she isn’t nervous as hell.
She does look up the Clay Cafe, but only a quick google search to confirm that it’s a real place and make sure the address matches what Michelle sent her. Not because she thinks Michelle is lying or anything, but because she’s not going to go blindly without at least doing the bare minimum safety check. Her mom raised her to be smarter than that.
Trying to figure out what to wear is probably the hardest part—because it’s a cafe, right? So, no need to get super fancy (not that she owns much fancy stuff when she’s been penny pinching for her entire life), but it’s a date, so dressing to impress is, like, required. The only hint Michelle gave was to dress comfortably and to wear something that she doesn’t mind potentially getting stained. Willow has no idea what to do with that input.
Obviously, that means that she calls her sister.
”Is it cold there?” Jane asks, voice a little staticky as it comes from Willow’s phone, where it’s propped up on top of her dressed for the Facetime call.
Willow hums. “Not really, no. It’s not warm, but I’ll be fine in a good sweater and pants.”
Jane’s face is entirely too close to the camera, the screen showing only her nose, her scrutinizing gaze, and the furrow between her brows that hints towards the frown that isn’t in frame. “And you’re going to a coffee shop where you might… get your clothes stained…?”
“I—I mean, yeah? I guess?” Willow probs her hands on her hips, shrugging helplessly. “It’s called the Clay Cafe and she said she wanted it to be a bit of a surprise. You can look it up if that’ll help, just don’t tell me what’s apparently so special about the place. She seems excited about surprising me with it.”
Immediately, Jane’s camera shifts as she starts typing, eyes squinting for a long moment before she lets out a delighted gasp. “Oh! You’re going to love it, Will!”
Willow feels herself grinning, face going warm. “Yeah?”
”It’s perfect,” Jane gushes, pulling her phone back enough to show how wide her own smile is. “This is so sweet. You’re going to have to tell me everything afterwards, okay? And I know exactly what you need to wear!”
She ends up in a pair of thrifted blue denim overalls that she painting smatterings of flowers on a few months ago—a mixture of all kinds, of daffodils and roses and sunflowers and daisies, the colors all over the place and chaotic in a way that she often doesn’t allow in her art. It had been Jane’s idea the last time she came to stay the weekend with Willow, doing a craft night that was all about letting go and—in Jane’s words—allowing the whimsy to shine through. The buttons have also been replaced with these golden star-shaped ones that they managed to find while thrifting, and they match pretty well with the t-shirt she’s wearing, a plain black with smattering yellow stars, a simple grey cardigan to top it off.
(Jane had found a similar pair of denim overalls, only hers had been black instead of blue, and rather than painting them, she had embroidered stars and planets into colorful, swirling. Just as messy and chaotic, but that’s how Jane’s creativity has always expressed itself.
Their mother has said that she doesn’t know how she raised so many creatively talented kids when she can’t draw a stick figure without it looking wonky, can’t sew to save her life, and was never able to take any home videos without them being blurry. Willow, Jane and Jonathan have countered that by reminding her how big of a theater kid she had been in high school. Still, their mother insists it’s a miracle and doesn’t come from her at all.)
The Clay Cafe is about a twelve minute walk from her apartment, so with a pair of comfortable shoes (per Jane’s insistance; “Something cute, but not fancy. No heels.”) and her knitted bag hanging off her shoulder (also per Jane’s insistance; “The one I made you for Christmas!”), she makes her way over at 3:45, the address plugged into her phone and her nerves fluttering like butterflies in her stomach—though less so than before, now that her sister has promised her that she’s going to love whatever the hell is so special about this coffee shop. She’s not worried about the where of it all anymore.
All of her remaining nerves have only to do with herself and her ability to hold a conversation with Michelle outside of the diner and the text messages that have been fairly easy and consistent the past few days. The fact that she can’t stop thinking about potentially having that end-of-date first kiss, if everything goes well, and what Michelle’s mouth will feel like against hers. She’s spent too much time staring at her lips when she talks. Enough time to imagine it quite extensively and vividly. To make her want to know the reality of it.
So, you know—normal first date fears.
She’s thinking about it (probably too much) when she rounds the final corner, and there, waiting on the sidewalk with hands in pocket and rocking back and forth a bit, is Michelle, peering around her with wide, waiting eyes—big and brown, though when they land on Willow’s approaching figure, they seem to sparkle gold as she brightens, sunlight beaming down on her like a spotlight, a guiding beam telling Willow where to go.
”Hey!” Michelle greets excitedly, pushing off the wall she’s leaning against and approaching Willow with a wide, giddy sort of grin. “How were your classes?”
Her energy is contagious. Willow can’t help but return the grin. “Good,” she says with a nod. “Really good, actually. It’s kind of weird—pretty much all of my classmates are, like, freshly out of high school, barely over eighteen, but my teachers have been really kind and encouraging and have given a few talks to the class about how it’s never too late to pursue your dreams and stuff, so now everyone is starting to include me in their conversations more, which is nice. I’m not really interested in being friends with any of them, but it makes classes feel less isolating, you know?”
Michelle’s eyes are warm as she attentively nods. Willow’s face feels warm.
”What about you?” she counters. “How was your day? Any progress on your book?”
”Uh, yeah—yeah, some. Not a lot. But some.” Michelle shrugs a bit, not quite dismissive, but clearly focused elsewhere. She holds out her hand, palm up and fingers extended in invitation. “Shall we?”
Willow doesn’t hesitate—reaches out, slides her hand into Michelle’s, lets herself be guided down the sidewalk, feeling something within her chest settle while her gut twists at the smooth warmth of Michelle’s skin pressed against hers. So this is what her hands feel like. I wonder—
She doesn’t have the chance to let that thought finish before Michelle is pulling open the door to the Clay Cafe, and in an instant, she’s hit with a wave of varying smells and sounds.
Coffee, the sweetness of pastries and warm teas, the earthiness of clay, the familiar hint of that strong, sharp scent of paint. Gentle chatter and even more gentle music, the scrape of chairs. A mingling of so many things that it would be overwhelming if not for how subtle all of it is, like they’re dancing with one another, almost becoming a comforting white noise that fades into the background with ease when she scans over the inside of the shop.
On one half, it looks like a typical coffee shop—a counter to order at, baristas behind the register, display cases with various food options, tables scattered across the floor. Where it looks like there would usually be a wall, however, is a wide entryway leading into a room filled with more tables and shelves full of unpainted pottery, what looks like hundreds of colors of paints, a couple sinks against the wall, and an endless supply of brushes and sponges, amongst other bins of supplies that she can’t quite identify from this far.
The Clay Cafe, she thinks with a breathless, surprised life. The name makes it feel obvious now. It’s part cafe, part pottery painting. No wonder Jane said she’d love it.
Michelle is still holding her hand, and when Willow finally drags her eyes away from their surroundings to look back at her, there’s an obvious insecurity and uncertainty clouding her eyes as she watches for Willow’s reaction. “Is it too on the nose?” she asks.
”I can’t believe this place is less than fifteen minutes away from where I live and I never had any idea that it was here,” Willow rushes out, well aware of the fact that her eyes must be blown wide with excitement. “This is—Michelle, this is amazing. This is—” She cuts off with an incredulous giggle, shaking her head. “This is perfect.”
”Oh, okay. Cool. Great.” Michelle’s shoulders drop with obvious relief. She tightens her hold on Willow’s hand and leads her toward the counter. “What do you want to drink?”
Michelle picks out a cute cottage looking house to paint, vaguely explaining her choice with, “There’s a house in the book that I kind of picture looking like this.” Willow, in turn, spends far too long looking over all the options before finally settling on a large mug, partially because she’s been wanting a good mug for her coffees and teas, but also partially because the mug is one of the cheaper options and Michelle is still insisting on paying.
She doesn’t say that second part. “My favorite mug broke a while ago,” is what she tells Michelle, which is true. A car had backfired while driving past her apartment building at three in the morning, while she was pulling an all-nighter working on an assignment, and she had dropped her fresh cup of coffee when she jumped, glass shattering on the floor.
Thankfully it hadn’t landed on any of the carpet or her rugs, or else the stain would have been inescapable and annoying. As it was, cleaning up the glass and mopping up her deeply-needed caffeine had been upsetting enough.
”I’ll make a new one,” she says with a nod, fingers dancing over the caps of various paints, trying to decide on what colors she should use. Curious, she asks, “What’s your favorite?”
Michelle plucks up a shade of pink, one that’s not too bright, bordering closer to a fuschia. She glances over at Willow, her sweater sleeves pushed up to her elbows and the glasses that Willow has only seen her wear while typing on her laptop pushed up the bridge of her nose, then looks back at the paint in her hands with a thoughtful frown. “Favorite what?”
”Favorite color,” Willow clarifies. “I think mine’s yellow, but—but only certain shades. It’s easy to have a bad yellow, you know? But when it’s the right shade, it feels like sunshine.”
Michelle looks at her again. Her lips pull back, smile wide. “You keep getting cuter,” she says. “And, uh—blue has been my favorite since I was a kid. I always liked looking at the sky whenever I was daydreaming about stories, so I think that might be why.”
Willow lets out a soft aww. “That’s adorable,” she says, and after another moment of consideration, grabs a nice, deep shade of blue and a soft yet bright yellow. Michelle eyes her choices with obvious curiosity before looking back up to meet Willow’s gaze, a silent question in her eyes. “Blue and yellow makes me think of Van Gogh,” Willow explains as she selects a few more shades of each, as well as a black and a white for mixing together more specific shades that aren’t on the shelves. “Starry Night, you know? I’m probably not gonna just try to recreate it, but something similar, maybe. Something with that kind of vibe.”
With a light hum, Michelle nods, though there’s a pleased twinkle in her eyes as she continues to look down at the various blues and yellows that Willow has gathered. “I’m excited to see it,” she says, before finally dragging her eyes forward once more, going back to picking out her own colors. “I’m mostly excited to see you make art, though,” she adds. “Ever since you said that you’re an artist, I’ve been dying to see some of your work.”
Although Willow is still learning to be comfortable with other people looking at the things she makes, there’s so much sincerity in Michelle’s voice that she finds herself replying with, “You can always ask. I’ll show you some of my drawings later if you want to see.”
”Yes, please,” Michelle says instantly, almost as if the words have left her before she even had time to think about them, a giddiness to her tone that’s impossible not to hear.
”I’d like to read your writing, eventually,” Willow adds. “If you’re ever okay with that.”
Michelle falters. “Um. Yeah. I just—I mean, yeah. For sure. Once I have something good.”
”I’m sure all of it is good,” Willow is quick to say, gathering all of her paints and watching as Michelle plucks up another, squints at it, sets it back down, and then picks up another. “Did you figure out more about who the love interest is gonna be?”
There’s a momentary lapse of silence as Michelle selects one last shade—an off-white, not quite eggshell but something close to it, a bit warmer—before she gathers her own paints and leads the way back to the table they claimed, sitting across from one another. As they both start to line their paints up and prep their supplies, Michelle finally replies, sounding a little sheepish as she says, “Yeah, I did. Her house is the one that I pictured when I saw this, actually.” She gestures at the pottery cottage she selected, and when Willow looks at her face, there’s a delicate pink dusting her cheeks. “She’s going to be a nature witch.”
All of Michelle’s colors, Willow realizes quite suddenly, are shades that would easily be found on a spring palette. She thinks back, then, to Michelle’s words in the diner—you just made spring sound so magical that it makes me want to incorporate that kind of magic into whoever she is—and realizes why Michelle has picked the colors that she picked.
She glances down at her own colors with new eyes. Blues and yellows, save for the one small bottle of black and one small bottle of white. Their favorite colors, put together.
“This,” she says, gesturing between their choices of colors, “is very gay of us, I think.”
The blush on Michelle’s face grows warmer, becomes more bright and obvious (and Willow can’t help but to commit that shade of pink to memory, to maybe use in a painting one day), but she looks at her paints, then at Willow’s, and then she lets out a snort that’s a little bit too loud for the otherwise soft-spoken environment. It causes people across the room to glance their way, but Willow is too busy muffling her own laughter into her palm to care.
“They’ll text me when our items are ready to be picked up,” Michelle is saying, walking alongside Willow, having insisted on walking Willow home once they left the cafe. “I’ll grab them then and we can either meet up or I can bring yours to the diner, whatever ends up being easiest. It’s typically, like, a week or two until they’re available to take home.”
Willow’s hands are buried in the pockets of her cardigan, the sun still out but the early evening chill is starting to hang in the air. She nods along to Michelle’s words, glances over to see how Michelle is talking with her hands, gesturing vaguely.
I want to hold her hand again, she thinks. Despite them both washing their hands after finishing painting, there are still smudges of spring shades peaking out from the sleeves of Michelle’s sweater and dotting her fingers like new, colorful freckles. Willow almost trips over herself, eyes stuck on the way Michelle’s hands move, the way her fingers dance throughout the air as she continues to ramble, a soft breeze pushing her curls off her shoulders, her bangs shifting with the wind. She’s so beautiful that it’s almost stupid.
They almost walk right past her building, Willow too distracted looking at Michelle and Michelle too busy talking, but when Willow comes to a stop, Michelle follows her lead.
“—and my sister, Nancy,” Michelle goes on, not even pausing when they stop walking, instead just turning toward Willow fully as she keeps talking. “She said that I was overreacting, which—she says that a lot, even though our little sister, Holly, is way more dramatic than me and overreacts way more often than I do, but she said—”
It’s not that Willow doesn’t want to listen to her, because she does. She enjoys listening to how Michelle rambles, enjoys the tone of her voice, the way she enunciates her words. But Willow is hit, suddenly, with a few different things at the same exact time.
One—the memory of Michelle at the diner saying, And tell me to shut up if I’m talking too much because I know I sometimes have a problem with that, especially when I’m nervous.
Two—the way Michelle had obediently pressed her lips together when Willow had done just that.
Three—the urge to see if it would happen again.
And lastly—the need to feel Michelle’s endlessly-moving mouth against her own.
Michelle is still talking, still talking, still talking. Willow watches her lips form the words and battles the urges for only a moment before giving in, glancing up to meet Michelle’s eyes and speaking up to cut in and say, “Shut up.”
Instantly, Michelle’s mouth is shut, lips pressed together, eyes wide as she looks at Willow, a sharp concern in her gaze, like she’s wondering what it is she said or did that was wrong.
“This is my building,” Willow says, waving a hand towards the door, though she doesn’t dare move her eyes away from Michelle, who continues to blink at her even as she nods, starting to look a little bit like a kicked puppy. Willow wants to kiss her. Actually, Willow wants to do a whole lot more than just kiss her. “Do you… Do you want to come inside?”
”Oh,” Michelle breathes, concern melting into understanding, then that understanding igniting into something hotter. She sinks her teeth into her lower lip and nods. “Yeah,” she says, lip reddened from where she bit down, hair a mess from the wind. “Yeah, I would.”
At first, it’s nothing but clinging onto their time together before having to part.
Because this date has been good. Despite her nerves at the start, Willow has enjoyed every second of it, melting into comfortable conversation and banter as they painted, having to muffle her laughter many times to avoid getting glared at by other people in the room. And yeah, sure, Willow has had good dates before—hell, Willow has had dates good enough to invite the other person inside, too—but this has been a whole new level of good.
It feels like they’ve known each other forever, despite having only met a couple months ago, only really knowing each other through those late night stolen moments in the diner, when Willow should have been working and Michelle should have been writing. There’s a level of comfort and familiarity that seems to be building far faster than should be possible.
Willow has invited women into her place after dates before. She’s hooked up with a few of them, too. But she’s never felt addicted to looking at any of them the way she does now.
They’re sitting on her couch—something cheap and small enough to fit into her apartment, though it’s surprisingly comfortable despite being something she found online for way cheaper than what the actual couch is worth. Willow has put some random movie on her TV for the sake of having something there, but she hasn’t looked at the screen in what feels like hours already, eyes instead trained onto Michelle, who has gone back to rambling in a way that is so endearing that Willow doesn’t have the heart to interrupt her just yet.
Is she still nervous? Is that why she keeps talking so much? Or is it because she already feels comfortable enough to let herself let go and talk so freely without feeling worried or embarrassed? Personally, Willow hopes it’s a healthy combination of both, hopes it’s the same mash-up of feelings that she’s got stirring low in her gut. That odd instinct of I know you, I like being around you, and the urge of I want to touch you, I want you to touch me.
Willow keeps looking at Michelle’s fingers. They’re dancing in the air again, mesmerizing.
It takes a moment for her to realize that Michelle is no longer talking.
With a start, Willow’s gaze snaps up to find that Michelle is now staring back at her, her own eyes blown a little wide, mouth parted slightly, somewhere between shocked and amused. “You can tell me to shut up,” she says—a partial reminder, and perhaps, maybe, a request, too. She wets her lower lip and adds, “I don’t mind shutting up.”
For a moment, Willow isn’t sure what to do with that, before her mind catches up, registering Michelle’s words (and her heavy stare) as an invitation. Her mouth feels dry and she wants to lunge forward, but she doesn’t. Instead, she says, “Kiss me.”
The noise Michelle lets out is almost a wheeze, wounded and small, and then she rapidly nods and murmurs the softest little, “Okay,” before reaching forward and pulling Willow in.
No matter how much Willow has looked at Michelle’s mouth, nothing could have prepared her for how perfectly their lips fit together, like they were moulded with the intention to fill in each other's gaps, like the universe always knew that they would meet, that they would fall into one another like this. You belong here, the universe whispers, as Willow presses forward, her hands coming up to curl her palms over Michelle’s jaw, as Michelle’s own hands move, one sliding over to settle on the back of Willow’s neck, the other dropping down to grip the front of Willow’s shirt, both pulling her even closer, closer. You fit here.
It’s the kind of kiss that Willow thought only existed in fiction, the kind of kiss that shouldn’t feel as good as it does, but god does it feel good. Her stomach drops, her gut curls, an endless pit of hunger opens up within her chest and leaves her starving for more. Some kind of sound—something desperate and dangerous—rumbles up from her chest, forces itself past her throat and out of her mouth, muffled only by Michelle’s tongue as she, just as desperate and hungry, wastes no time before licking into Willow’s mouth.
Willow wants to devour her.
Within seconds of them parting for breath, Willow surges forward again with a ragged gasp, sealing their mouths together, oxygen be damned. She’ll share whatever’s in Michelle’s lungs, breathe in her air and give it back in turn, whatever she needs to do to keep them from parting.
“Mm.” Michelle hums into Willow’s mouth, the sound reverberating through her teeth, thrumming within her chest like rolling thunder, paired with tendrils of lightning that ricochet through her veins when Michelle’s hand skims up, climbing from the back of Willow’s neck and into her hair, carding through the strands before twisting them around her fingers.
Michelle pulls back with something like a whine in the back of her throat. Willow wants to taste that whine on her tongue, but Michelle’s pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth before Willow is able to lean back in, lips dragging down Willow’s chin, pressing into her jaw.
She’s panting into Willow’s skin between her kisses, her hands shaking, looking and sounding like she’s already far, far gone—comes to a stop with her forehead resting on Willow’s shoulder.
Willow runs her hands through her hair, feels her shudder, wants to kiss her more, more, more.
“I feel crazy,” Michelle murmurs, head turning, nosing along the column of Willow’s throat, sending a shiver down her spine. “You make me feel crazy. Do you feel that? Is it just me?”
Maybe Willow should err on the side of caution, on the side of logic—but it’s been two months and her obsession with Michelle has been a steadily growing monster, a festering desire and need that has made her dizzy, made her mind drift along to dirty places in the middle of her shifts. She has drawn Michelle over and over already and wants to feel the skin that she keep sketching onto her pages, wants to hear her, to see her, to experience whatever she’s willing to give.
It does make her feel crazy. It seems far too soon to feel so infatuated with her. Yet, she is.
She ducks her head, seeks out Michelle’s mouth again, hands guiding her face away from her neck and back up to kiss her stupid, and in between each biting kiss, she says, “It is crazy.” She says, “I feel it, too.” She says, “I haven’t stopped wanting you ever since I first saw you.”
Michelle moans at that, a broken, needy sound that drifts into something higher and breathier as she drops her hands, wrapping nimble fingers around the straps of her overalls. “Can you—?”
“Yeah,” Willow ghosts out, withdrawing her own hands to make quick work of the star-shaped buttons, letting the straps fall away before grabbing her shirt by the hem, desire a boiling heat that battles away whatever nervousness she would usually feel. Without much thought, she pulls her shirt up and off, having already removed her cardigan at the door, leaving her in her navy blue bra and the overalls pooled around her waist. She looks at Michelle’s sweater. “Your turn?”
The speed in which Michelle whips off her sweater is almost stunning, leaving Willow with her hands outstretched, watching slack-jawed as Michelle makes quick work of the tanktop she was wearing beneath, as well, revealing pale, smooth skin and a simple black sports bra.
Willow wants to touch her, and she does, reaching forward with a clawing need to press the pads of her fingers on Michelle’s stomach, watching and feeling the way it jumps whe Michelle sucks in a sharp, surprised little gasp, one that draws out into a whimper when Willow flattens her hand, palm curving around her waist. “You’re so beautiful,” she breathes, awed.
The noise Michelle makes is somewhere between a punched-out groan and an incredulous laugh. “Are you serious? Have you seen yourself? I’m so—” She cuts herself off with a garbled gasp as she leans into Willow, head ducking down to press lips against the underside of her jaw and rasping against her skin, breath hot and warm and damp, her hands hovering, awaiting guidance, begging for permission. “Willow, can I touch you? Can I please? Will you let me touch you?”
“You think you have to keep asking?” Willow giggles, feeling both wild and breathless. Michelle flushes, her fingers curling inward, forming two shaking fists, eyes wide and pleading.
“I want you to tell me,” she admits, voice strained. “I want you to tell me what you want.”
Willow thinks what she wants is obvious—but there’s something bordering on feral in Michelle’s eyes, a need to be told, to tbe instructed. She thinks of how quickly Michelle has pressed her lips closed when Willow told her to shut up, like she was eager to follow order, to do as told.
In her limited experience (limited, but certainly not bad), it is typically Willow being instructed, being manuevered, being told, and she enjoys it that way, but this—this is different.
(Everything about Michelle has been different since they first met.)
The way Michelle is looking at her makes something insatiable and bottomless open up in the pit of her stomach. “Okay,” she breathes, grabbing Michelle’s hands in her own and pulling them closer, pressing one to her own chest, over her thundering heart—the other to her own stomach, her breath catching at the feeling of Michelle’s skin against hers, the initial shock turning into a burning heat, an igniting fire that leaves a scorching trail of flames. Willow bites back a pathetic whimper, looking at Michelle’s face—at Michelle, who is staring at her hands, at where they’re touching, her jaw slightly dropped and pupils blown wide. Willow’s lips twitch, stuck somewhere between dizzyingly turned on and surprisingly amused. “You look high.”
Michelle’s gaze flickers up, meeting Willow’s, her tongue flickering out to wet her lower lip. When she speaks, her voice is weak and broken. “Please tell me what to do. Please.”
“Jesus,” Willow whispers, her breath getting caught in her throat. “You really want me to?”
“Baby, please.”
Oh, god. Willow shudders, drags Michelle’s hands lower, resting one over her heart and dipping the other below the pooling denim. “Touch me,” she murmurs, and it’s so unlike herself, to talk so openly about a desire so filthy, but here and now, in this moment, with Michelle, it feels as easy as breathing. Easier, even. “I want you to touch me, sweetheart.”
A full-body shiver causes Michelle to jolt forward, and then she’s latching her mouth onto the side of Willow’s neck, scraping her teeth over delicate skin as she cups Willow’s breast in her palm, thumb swiping back and forth over the material of her bra, while her other hand delves deeper under the denim, fingers brushing against the hem of her underwear. “I can?” she asks airily, toying with the lace, licking along the hinge of Willow’s jaw. “I can touch you here?”.
Willow tilts her head back with a soft moan of encouragement. “Yes, you can. I want you to.”
“Thank you,” Michelle whispers, fingers dipping lower, pushing beneath her panties with hungry fingers—fingers that Willow has stared at, has drawn, has already dreamed about. She shifts her weight, leans further into the couch and widens her legs in invitation, feeling the way Michelle moans against her collarbone as she brushes through damp, course, curly hair and seeks out the source of the wetness, touch light and tentative as she skims over Willow’s clit. Michelle lets out another wounded sound, pressing down harder and shuddering like she’s the one getting touched. Willow’s hips twitch up, seeking the friction as she whines. “You’re so warm, baby. You’re so warm and wet and—oh, fuck, thank you, thank you for letting me touch you, thank you—”
“Stop,” Willow grits out, teeth clenched, and feels adoration bubbling in her chest when Michelle immediately does, both hands withdrawing as she leans back, eyes wide and worried.
“Are you okay? What’s—did I—are you—”
Willow laughs, light and breathless, already missing the feeling of Michelle’s fingers on her. “I’m perfect,” she quickly assures. “You’re perfect. But I have a bed and I want both of us to be naked before we move any further. If that’s—I mean, is that… okay?”
Michelle’s nodding before Willow has finished asking. “Being naked in a bed sounds amazing.”
The way Willow giggles is entirely unintentional, but she can’t help it, entirely too endeared by the way Michelle is looking at her. “You’re ridiculous,” she laughs, but she pushes herself to her feet and pulls Michelle along with her, leaving their already discarded clothes behind to lead her to her bed—not in it’s own room, because this is technically a studio apartment with a single bathroom attached, but she’s sectioned her place with curtains to provide the idea of individual rooms. It’s still small as hell, but it’s hers and she adores it, so she feels no shame as she pulls Michelle through the curtain and into her room, dropping her hand to say, “Get naked.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Michelle responds, hands immediately moving to her jeans to unbotton them and push them down, leaving her in just her sports bra and a pair of boyshorts underwear. Willow freezes, just looking at her, drinking in her beauty—until Michelle shifts her weight and clears her throat, drawing Willow’s eyes up to meet her gaze. “Like, all the way naked, or…?”
Willow swallows thickly. Instead of answering verbally, she hooks her thumbs under her folded over overalls and beneath her panties, pushing them both down in one terrifyingly brave move.
Michelle glances down, then up again with a slow blink. “All the way naked. Okay. Got it.”
“If you’re comfortable,” Willow is quick to say, because—well, Michelle is saying all this about wanting to be told what to do and all of that, and Willow is all for that, has so far been finding it way, way too hot, but she refuses to let it turn into Michelle feeling like she has to do something.
Michelle giggles, grinning wide and giddy as she lowers her boyshorts without hesitation. “I am,” she assures, hands moving up to peel off her sports bra, a sight that Willow is all too happy to appreciate while she reaches behind her to unclasp her own bra. It goes from sexy to silly in about two seconds, though, when Michelle gets stuck for a moment, and Willow has to bite back a laugh once her own bra is off as she watches her twist and turn, flailing a bit as she struggles.
“Did you need me to—”
“No,” Michelle cuts in quickly, sounding embarrassed. She reaches back, arm over her hand, and finally manages to get a hold of the band across her back, pulling her bra off with an annoyed huff. Willow can’t help but giggle as Michelle drops her bra on the floor with a sharp glare, though she looks back up quickly at the sound of Willow’s laugh, and her glare softens into a wide-eyed sheepishness as she rubs at the back of her neck. “I didn’t just kill the mood, right?”
Willow grins—feels something warm and giddy in her chest. The fire hasn’t gone out, but it’s calmed itself for now, leaving her to say, “Not at all. Just reminded me why I like you so much.”
Michelle blinks at her, awestruck. “You like me?”
Willow laughs again. “Yeah? We literally just went on a date, Michelle. Isn’t it obvious?”
“I mean—I mean, yeah—” Michelle stutters a bit, looks away with her face burning red, arms crossing over her chest as she shrinks in slightly on herself. “It’s just different to hear you say it.”
“Is it?” Willow questions—more a musing, really, not too set on getting an answer, though the speed in which Michelle nods is answer enough as it is. It’s interesting, though, considering the way she was begging to be told what to do. Maybe it’s not a direct connection, but there’s enough similarity to make her think. Curious, Willow asks, “What makes it different?”
Michelle shrugs. “Just, like… I can think it and it can seem obvious, but I could be wrong, you know? I’ve been real shit at reading signals before—I mean, I thought I was being obvious about liking you the whole time, and you didn’t even realize I’m gay, so—I just… like to hear things. When you say it, I can’t tell myself that I’m making it up or reading it wrong because it’s something you said, not something I thought, you know? It’s just, like… reassuring, I guess.”
Willow doesn’t respond for a moment, letting that process in her head, and then—then she reaches forward, grabbing Michelle by the hand and pulling her in as she backs up, until the backs of her knees hit her mattress. “Well,” she says, “I like you. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since the night you walked in. I’ve drawn you, like, a hundred times because I can’t stop thinking about you. I like you, and I want to touch you and I want you to touch me. And I want you to tell me what you want, because I like you and I want you to feel good, too.”
For a second, Michelle only peers at Willow, the couple inches of height she has making her look down, yet the way she stares spells out an intense devotion that makes it feel like she’s kneeling on the floor. She wets her lower lip, glances down at Willow’s mouth, then even further down—staring awe-filled at Willow’s body, that hunger once again burning bright in her eyes, before she slowly drags her eyes back up to meet Willow’s gaze. “I want to eat you out. Can I?”
A shiver rolls down Willow’s spine. “Yeah. Yeah, you can,” she says, dizzy with the idea. If Michelle’s lips feel so good on her mouth, she can’t wait to see how they’ll feel there.
“I want to eat you out right now,” Michelle rasps, looking like she’s starving. “Lay down?”
“Yes,” Willow breathes, letting go of Michelle’s hand and falling back on her bed, pushing herself until she’s leaning against the headboard, faltering only a moment before letting her legs part, peering up at Michelle, teeth sinking into her lower lip.
Michelle’s knees nearly buckle. “Fuck,” she whines—and then she’s throwing herself forward like a dying woman in need on water, like Willow is the only water source for miles. She doesn’t dive right into it, instead letting her fingers dance along Willow’s inner thighs, pressing her forehead against Willow’s ribs and mouthing at the soft skin of her lower stomach. “Tell me.”
Willow can feel herself getting more and more wet with each waiting second. “Tell you what?”
“Tell me what you want me to do,” Michelle murmurs over her ribcage. “Tell me how you feel.”
“I feel like I’m gonna go crazy if you keep making me wait for it,” Willow says with an impatient groan. “And I want you to stop talking and put your mouth on me right fucking now.”
With what sounds somewhere between a whimper and a mewl, Michelle nods and starts placing open-mouthed kisses next to Willow’s belly button, across her stomach, over her hip, teeth scraping over her hipbone before she goes lower, lower, lower—and then she’s where Willow wants her to be, nosing through her pubes and licking along the seam of her folds, a direct heat that punches a needy keen from the center of Willow’s chest.
She reaches down without thinking, fingers threading through Michelle’s curls and pulling her closer, hissing out a low, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” as Michelle follows the silent order and presses her tongue flat over Willow’s clit, moaning as she licks over the bud in slow drags. The vibration makes Willow shudder, tugging at Michelle’s hair. “God. Keep doing that. Keep—”
As if she was waiting for the approval, Michelle doubles down on her efforts, using her tongue like it’s her damn job, lapping at Willow with every ounce of stored up energy that she has, letting out her own pitchy, satisfied sounds as she focuses on Willow’s clit, makes her way down to tease the tip of her tongue at Willow’s entrance, dipping it in before moving up once more. She’s damn fucking good at it, Willow is quick to learn—not overwhelmingly so, not to the point where Willow feels like this is going to be over far too soon, but enough so to make the pleasure a constant rolling feeling, something that ebbs and flows like waves but never fully recedes. It’s so fucking good that she thinks she’s going to get addicted to the feeling—wonders the logistics behind keeping them here forever, Michelle’s mouth on her and never leaving.
She’s sure there’s a way to make it happen, but she isn’t capable of coming up with how right now, her thoughts becoming more and more muddled the more Michelle devours her. The waves are becoming bigger with each passing second, and maybe—maybe she was underestimating just how good this is, because the crux is suddenly and quickly approaching as Michelle moves her focus onto Willow’s entrance, one hand trailing down so that she can rub circles over Willow’s clit with her thumb, the other pushing against the inside of Willow’s thigh to open her up even further. “Fuck,” Willow bites out, hips lifting, wanting more. “Fuck! I’m gonna—I’m close—”
Michelle pulls her mouth away—not by much, still close enough for Willow to feel each exhale against her more sensitive places, making her shiver as she meets Michelle’s gaze with wide, wild eyes. “Do you want to cum like this?” Michelle asks, thumb resting, unmoving, over Willow’s clit. “I’ll keep going if you want. I’ll make you cum like this if you want me to.”
It’s not often that Willow is able to cum more than once—she’s usually not aroused enough to want to go for more—but the heat in her gut is so burning and intense that she doubts just one will be enough. Even if it is, though, she doesn’t care. If things go how she hopes, this won’t be the only time she gets Michelle in bed. “Keep going,” she says, hips twitching. “Make me cum.”
With a sickly-sweet whimper, Michelle lets Willow’s hands pull her back in with even more energy, more enthusiasm, more bottomless hunger, her thumb pressing down and flicking back and forth over Willow’s clit as she licks into Willow, desperate and starved. She keeps making noise, like she can’t stop, like she can’t help it—little punched out groans, long and lingering moans, noises that sound like she’s the one getting fucked. God, Willow wants to fuck her.
“Fingers,” Willow whines out, thinking about when it’ll be her turn, thinking about how bad she wants to flip them around and get Michelle under her—making her cry out and shake and fall apart. She wants to fuck Michelle so hard that she feels it for days, and she needs Michelle to put her fingers inside of her, needs to feel her from deep within. She yanks at Michelle’s hair, causes Michelle to moan louder than before and nearly topples over the edge from the way it feels and sounds. “Put your fingers in, Mich, fuck me with them, please—”
“Fuck,” Michelle croaks, withdrawing her tongue and panting against Willow’s thigh as she does as told, keeping the pressure against Willow’s clit a constant while she brings her other hand over, wasting zero time before plunging two of her fingers in—not all the way, but to her second knuckles, just to test it out, then pushing them in the rest of the way when Willow throws her head back with a loud cry, pushing her hips down with need. “Fuck, baby, you’re so—fuck.”
Her fingers reach so far—they crook and drag against Willow’s walls, and it doesn’t take long, when paired with the consistent shifting pressure against her clit, for her to toe the ledge, thighs shaking, hips bearing down and trying to get Michelle’s fingers deeper, punching out words of encouragement as she gets closer and closer. “So good, so good, keep going, you’re so good—”
Michelle sinks her teeth into the meat of Willow’s thigh, a shrill, high-pitched whine ringing through the room as she drivers her fingers in deeper, harder, faster, working Willow’s clit with surprising focus, even as she pushes her own hips into the mattress, craving her own friction.
“Ah!” Willow gasps, the sting of the bite pairing delicously with the biting pleasure, and just like that, between one heaving breath and the next, she’s cumming harder than she ever has before. Her vision goes white, eyes rolling back, hips twitching, twitching—towards the pleasure, chasing it, wanting to ride the waves for as long as possible, before it starts to become too much. She struggles to catch her breath, one hand dropping from Michelle’s curls to grasp her wrist, forcing her hands to a stop as she heaves, breath catching with every other inhale.
It takes a moment for her to process that Michelle is kissing over where she had bitten down, slowly withdrawing her fingers and moving her other hand away from Willow’s clit to instead rub soothing circles against her hip. The actions are sweet, but the way Michelle is shaking is undeniable, like she’s restraining herself, holding herself back from asking for more.
Willow gives herself a minute to gather herself, until she’s no longer weak and trembling, petting through Michelle’s hair until she’s ready to talk. “Michelle,” she rasps out, voice abused and croaky but stronger now. She waits until Michelle shakily raises her head and meets her gaze, big brown eyes teary and desperate, mouth parted and breathing heavy, already looking fucked out. Willow cups her face in her hands, brushes over the apples of her cheeks. “What do you want?”
Leaning into the touch, Michelle blinks up at her, looking through her lashes—oh, and Willow is never going to forget how it looks, knows that the next time Michelle stops by the diner and peers at her through her lashes, she’s going to think about this exact moment, going to remember the pleasure and the need and the feeling of sweat on her skin, taste of salt in the air. That’s a problem for later, though; right now, all that matters is Michelle, who is nuzzling into Willow’s palm like she’s starved for the touch, for the affection, blinking up at Willow like she can’t form a full thought, like she can’t figure out what she wants—knows only that she wants it badly.
“C’mere,” Willow murmurs, pulling Michelle up, guiding her until she’s draped over Willow, their mouths meeting in a slick, sweet kiss. She tastes herself in Michelle’s mouth and it makes her shiver, desire still twisting in her gut, temporarily satisfied but still hungry, still aching.
The way Michelle kisses her is almost heartbreaking, tremors rolling through her body as she pushes into it, fingers pressing into the sides of Willow’s neck, into her shoulder. She’s whimpering into Willow’s mouth like it’s the best thing she could ever hope for, straddling Willow’s hips and shifting her weight, like she wants to grind down but won’t allow herself to.
Willow parts from the kiss slowly, bumps her nose into Michelle’s and waits for her to open her eyes, meeting Willow’s gaze with a deep, shaky breath. Willow asks again, “What do you want?”
“You,” Michelle murmurs, looking almost in a trance, staring at Willow so openly.
“Yeah?” Willow bites back a grin, a giggle trapped under her tongue. Michelle nods, leans in again to press wet, lingering kisses to Willow’s face. “What do you want me to do?”
Michelle swallows, thick and heavy. “Anything,” she breathes. “Anything, Willow. Please.”
Hearing her plead is becoming one of Willow’s favorite sounds, but anything is not enough, not when Willow wants to do whatever will make Michelle feel best. “I want to do whatever you want me to do,” she murmurs, being careful as she pushes Michelle’s shoulder, guiding her as she rolls them both over, until she’s got Michelle laying under her, resting in the cradle of her open thighs. “Honey, I want to do what will make you feel as good as you just made me feel.”
The way Michelle shivers at the pet name is obvious, but Willow chooses not to comment on that right now. She just leans down and starts to mouth at Michelle’s neck, kissing along the column of her throat, working her way down as Michelle pants into the open air, making no move to go lower than her collarbones or make any other move, instead waiting patiently for a response.
Tell me what you like, she wants to beg. Tell me what makes you scream.
“I want—” Michelle stops, breath hitching in her throat as she brings up a shaking hand, twisting Willow’s hair around her fingers, head tilting back. “I want you to mark me,” she murmurs airily, then gives an appreciative moan when Willow immediately latches herself onto the junction just below the hinge of her jaw, where her hair will mostly hide the inevitable bruise that will be left behind. Apparently emboldened, Michelle continues, a new breathiness to her tone as she says, “I want your hands on me, baby. I want you to fuck me stupid.”
Willow detaches from Michelle’s neck, looks at the reddened skin and knows it’ll turn into a delicious purple by morning. “Yeah? Just my hands, or do you want my mouth, too?”
“God, just—just your hands for now,” Michelle pants, stretching out her neck, like she’s begging for Willow to sink in her teeth and never let go. “Your fingers, baby. Want you to keep marking me while you fuck me with them. Can you, Willow? Can you please?”
“Of course,” Willow breathes, brushing her hand down Michelle’s side, touch feather-light so that she can feel each twitching muscle, each small shiver. “Is it okay if they can be seen?”
Michelle nods rapidly, hands tightening in Willow’s hair, but she doesn’t pull. “Yes! Yes, they can—please, I want to see them when I look in the mirror, I want everyone to see them—”
With a weak groan, Willow takes that as permission to dive in, throwing caution to the wind as she picks a random spot and bites—not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to make Michelle yelp, a sharp, surprised sound that shifts into a loud, shaking moan. Willow sucks the skin into her mouth, continues to work her teeth over it as her hand hooks under Michelle’s thigh, pushing her legs even further apart, as far as they can go. Once she’s satisfied, she moves her mouth to another patch of skin and does the same thing, dragging her hand back up until she’s got her fingers resting, teasingly, over Michelle’s entrance. “Inside?” she asks between bruising bites.
“Please.”
With that plea, Willow does as wanted, though she starts with just one finger, easing it in with a tinge of caution, only for it to quickly become evident that it isn’t needed as Michelle’s warmth invites her in with ease, warm and open and wanting. Michelle lets out a sigh, loud and shaky, head tilted back into Willow’s pillows, giving ample space for Willow to continue covering in bruises. She pumps her finger slowly, Michelle already so wet that it takes no time at all before Willow feels confident in pushing her ring finger in as well, picking up speed as she does.
Michelle is trying to widen her legs even more, despite not being flexible enough to go further than they already are. “Oh, fuck,” she breathes, chest heaving with each shaky breath, hips twitching to meet each thrust and crook of Willow’s fingers. She’s already trembling like a leaf in a breeze, still worked up from getting Willow off, eyes softly shut and lips parting around gentle gasps. Encouragd, Willow slides a third finger in, feels the vibration of Michelle’s raw moan against her lips as she sucks another mark into her skin. “Oh, fu–f–fuck—!”
“You’re vocal,” Willow murmurs into her jaw, more observational than anything else.
“S–Sorry,” Michelle chokes out.
Willow shakes her head, pulls back enough to get a good, long look at Michelle’s face, her eyes welling with tears and features slack with bliss. “I like hearing you,” she assures, then decides to own up to her earlier thought, admitting, “I want to make you feel so good that you scream.”
Michelle stares at her for a long moment, like she can’t quite believe it, can’t really understand Willow wanting so bad to make her feel good. Willow keeps fucking her with her fingers, a steady pace, reaching in as deep as she can and sees how each thrust makes Michelle shudder, makes her breath catch. Shakily, Michelle asks, “Can you mark me more? Can you—?”
She doesn’t yank, but she lightly pulls, using her hands in Willow’s hair to offer the idea of guidance, and Willow lets herself be moved until she’s mouth-to-chest with Michelle’s breasts.
“Here,” Michelle breathes, rocking down against Willow’s fingers. “Can you mark me here?”
With a hiccuped moan, Willow nods, before skimming her lips over the soft, delicate skin of her right breast as she loves to the left, pressing a kiss over Michelle’s heart—feeling the thrum of it beneath her lips, the jackrabbit speed spelling out just how effected she is by all this. She plants her knees on the mattress for balance and sinks her free hand into the pillows, curling her fingers harshly inside of Michelle just to hear her moan brokenly because of it, her hips still lifting and rocking, still actively fucking herself back onto Willow like she can’t get enough, like she needs more, like she’ll die without it, without Willow inside of her, jabbing at her inner walls.
As she feels Michelle clenching around her, as she picks up the speed and changes the angle in which she drives her fingers inside, she also seals her lips over Michelle’s nipple—being gentle at first, running her tongue over the bud with curiosity, wondering how Michelle will react, only to be pleasantly surprised when Michelle’s back arches off the mattress with a strangled cry, hips stuttering on Willow’s fingers, ribs jumping with each gasping, heaving breath.
Willow moves her mouth to the left of Michelle’s nipple, and here, she bites—sinks her teeth in, like she was doing before, to Michelle’s neck. Above her, Michelle lets out a rough sob, and now it’s like she can’t stay still, her body writhing beneath Willow, though she keeps pushing her chest up, seeking Willow’s mouth, and fucking her hips down, taking Willow deeper and deeper.
It’s the hottest thing Willow has ever experienced in her fucking life.
She moves her mouth again, finding a new, unblemished patch of skin on the underside of Michelle’s breast and bites into it, feeling insatiable, feeling hungrier now than she has all evening. She’s pretty sure she’s dripping wet between her thighs, pretty sure she could cum again with just the lightest little touch, but ignores that fact for now—focuses, instead, on twisting her fingers, on biting bruises into pale, freckled skin, on getting Michelle to shake herself apart.
“O–Oh—” Michelle’s voice is thick and wet, and when Willow glaces up at her, there are tears clumping her lashes together, making her eyes shimmer. Willow almost stops, but Michelle’s features are cracked open with obvious pleasure and she hasn’t stopped rolling her hips. In fact, when Willow starts to slow her fingers in concern, Michelle sobs again and fucks herself down, head shaking wildly. “More,” she mumbles, tone pleading. “More, more, more, more—”
Willow wets her lower lip. “More what?” she asks, sounding (feeling) desperate. “What do you need, sweetheart? What’ll get you there? Tell me, please, tell me what you need me to do.”
Any of those reserves Michelle had earlier about saying what it is she wants are out the window, as this time she’s quick to respond, gasping out, “My clit, my—please, fuck, oh god—”
Instantly, Willow presses her thumb against Michelle’s clit, fucking her fingers in fast and deep, allowing that motion to provide the movement and friction as she moves. Michelle throws her head bask with a deep, shuttering gasp, rolling her hips up into the friction and then down onto Willow’s fingers, like she can’t decide which is better, like she can’t get enough of either.
Ravenous, she turns her head to give attention to Michelle’s other breast, biting and licking and sucking, driving her fingers in hard, pressing down on her clit and flicking her thumb over it, the way Michelle had done to her. Each dizzyingly beautiful moan that Michelle lets out is cut off by another one, each one getting higher in pitch, breathy and overwhelmed. Her thighs are shaking and there’s a filthy squelching that’s filling the room and Willow wants to see her cum so badly that she might lose her mind if it doesn’t happen soon.
“So good,” she rasps, muffled by the laving kisses she’s pressing into Michelles skin. “You’re so pretty, honey, you sound—god, you sound so beautiful. I want you to cum, sweetheart, I want—”
Michelle’s thighs are shaking as she snaps her hips up, meeting Willow’s fingers one, two, three more times, and then her whole body goes tense as she lets out a long, warbled wail, head tilting back, body constricting wildly around Willow’s fingers, and—and a wave of wetness gushes out of her, covering Willow’s hand, dripping from her wrist, soaking into her sheets. She looks down, still working her fingers as Michelle rides out her orgasm, awestruck by the sight.
She just made Michelle squirt. Oh my fucking god.
It takes a minutes before Michelle’s hip drop back to the mattress as harsh, body-wracking shudders roll through her, but she makes no move towards pushing Willow’s hand away. Rather, she seems to find comfort with Willow still being inside of her, hips still twitching down, like she wants to seek more but can’t bring herself to follow through.
Willow waits another moment, then finally pulls her fingers out, seeing them shining under the light. “You squirted,” she murmurs, awed. She’s only seen people squirt like that in porn.
Immediately, Michelle tries to close her thighs, though it’s impossible to do with Willow resting between them. “Fuck,” Michelle rasps, though she sounds panicked. “Did I? I’m—shit, I’m sorry, that—that usually only happens when I’m using my vibrator, I didn’t think—”
Willow snaps her eyes up to meet Michelle’s gaze. “I need to make you do that again.”
“Y–You—what?”
“That’s so hot,” Willow continues, and it’s—fucking unsanitary, probably, but she’s aching to be touched again, and she looks down at her hand, at Michelle dripping off her fingers, and she reaches down between her own legs eagerly, smoothing her fingers over her clit. She’s still sensitive from cumming once, but she doesn’t care, dropping her head down to keep mouthing at Michelle’s chest, feeling as Michelle’s hands tighten in her hair, letting out a surprised groan.
“Oh my god,” Michelle murmurs, tone tinged with awe, voice still breathless. “Are you touching yourself? Willow, baby, are you—”
Willow nods with a shudder. “Yeah,” she breathes, and it won’t take long, but it doesn’t feel like enough. She’s still craving more, goes from mouthing at the forming bruises on Michelle’s breasts to trailing her lips down, between her breasts and down her stomach, shuffling herself until she’s laying between her still-shaking thighs. She’s working her fingers over her clit almost angrily, dizzy with the knowledge that the glide is so smooth because of Michelle’s cum on her fingers—the same cum that’s glistening under the soft, warm light. “Can I taste you, Mich?”
The laugh that Michelle lets out is bordering on hysterical as she reaches up to cover her eyes with her hand, but the other hand, still twisting Willow’s hair around her fingers, tightens its hold slightly, almost subconscious as she tries to pull Willow in. “Can you?” Michelle repeats incredulously, a giggle to her words. “God, baby, I think you’re trying to kill me here.”
“Can I?” Willow repeats again, nosing at the crease where hip meets thigh. “Can I, sweetheart?”
That incredulous giggle tapers off into a sharp, shaky whine. “Y–Yeah. Yes. Please.”
Given the green light, Willow lowers her mouth, descending on Michelle’s twitching clit with her own heedy moan. There’s less of a taste than she was expecting, but Willow doesn’t care, lapping it all up eagerly, hearing the way Michelle shouts above her, hips twitching back, oversensitive, and then forward—wanting more, like she can’t help it, grinding down against Willow’s tongue. There’s a hint of saltiness to her, something a little sweet—sweat and cum, the smell and the taste of sex, the need for more despite having both already tipped over the edge.
“Fuck,” Michelle is saying, her voice a whine. “Oh, fuck. Oh my god. O–Oh my g–guh–god—”
Willow works her fingers faster, rubbing at her clit furiosly while she sucks Michelle’s into her mouth. She needs to cum again. Even more than that, she needs Michelle to cum again.
It doesn’t take long before Michelle is letting out another sob, followed by another wet wave gushing over Willow’s face, dripping down her chin. She reaches up, gathers more on her fingers and goes back to working her clit so hard that it almost hurts—and then she’s shaking apart again, too, forehead pressed to Michelle’s hip, gasping against her shaking thigh, hips twitching to grind against her fingers while she rides it out, then sinking into the bed when she’s done.
Michelle’s hands are shaking when she pulls Willow up the bed, and it’s kind of gross, all the different fluids and the drying sweat and the damp blankets and sheets, but neither of them cares as Michelle guides their mouths together, kissing her softly while they catch their breath.
“So,” she eventually says, once neither of them are heaving for oxygen, waiting until Willow withdraws enough to meet her gaze. Michelle grins. “How do you feel about a second date?”
There are still hickeys spanning across Michelle’s neck when she walks in.
They aren’t as bright or obvious—healing nicely, becoming more faint and soft, but Willow can spot them the second she glances towards the door. Michelle smiles at her, nods a greeting, and then makes her way to her usual corner booth, all while Willow’s eyes trail after her.
Miss Butterfield clears her throat, and Willow snaps back to focus with a sharp gasp.
“Sorry,” she says weakly, setting the plate of food down with a sheepish flush. “Here’s your food, ma’am. Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”
Before Miss Butterfield can do more than give Willow a knowing smile, she scrambles away, heading first behind the counter to grap Michelle’s usual cup of coffee before making her way over to the booth, her heart tripping over itself in her chest.
Michelle looks up as she approaches. She grins. “Guess what I picked up today?”
Willow sets the coffee down, slides in across the booth—feels Michelle purposefully knock their feet together and can’t help but smile. “What?”
With a flourish, Michelle opens her bag and pulls out the mug that Willow painted—swirls of blues and yellows, dotted with stars. “Our pottery!” Michelle says excitedly, holding the mug out for Willow to take. “Mine’s already at home, but I’ll show you how it looks later. Yours looks way better than mine does, though, which is kind of what I was expecting.”
“Oh, wow,” Willow murmurs, cradling the mug in her hands gently, looking down at it with wide eyes. It came out beautiful, really—and the more she looks at it, the more she realizes.
This is going to be her favorite mug. Not only because it’s large and sturdy, but because she painted this on their first date—painted it mere hours before spending the night together. She’s always going to look at this mug and think of that night, and the morning after, and the days that followed. The realization makes her grin, and when she looks up, Michelle is already looking at her with her own wide, shimmering eyes. “It came out great, right?”
Willow nods. “It did,” she agrees softly.
The moments hangs over them for a few lasting seconds—and then Michelle clears her throat, pushing open her laptop. “I finished the chapter I was on. Do you— I mean, not now, obviously, since you’re at work, but—but did you maybe want to read it? Let me know what you think?”
Willow’s grin widens. “Obviously,” she says, her heart aching at the way Michelle’s features brighten. There’s a chime as the door opens behind her, and when she glances over, she sees a couple of college kids walking in with textbooks in hand. Sighing, she sets the mug back on the table and asks, “How about after my shift? I can come to your place, or you can come to mine?”
“Yeah,” Michelle nods, smiling wide. “I’d like that.”
i wanna lay my body down
i can’t go without
‘cause i’m forever bound