Chapter Text
Stella paces her living room, fidgeting with her phone, not wanting to make the call but knowing she needs to. She’s already figured out what she’s going to say, or at least, she thinks, how she’ll start. There’s something I didn’t tell you. It’s going to come out at trial. I don’t want you to find out like that; I want you to be prepared. Something catches her eye out the window, so she walks over to gaze out at the city.
Reed will be angry. Stella knows she’ll be angry. You are not responsible for Reed’s emotions. It’s true, of course, but it doesn’t make telling her any easier.
As her eyes scan the street below, she forces herself to remember that evening when Jim showed up.
* * * *
He hadn’t even started talking, and all Stella wanted was for Jim to leave. She didn’t care, truly, about a thing he was saying. Compared to Rose, to Olivia, to Annie? He has the gall to come whine to her about his career. He has the gall to say he’ll be “finished” and expect her to feel sorry for him. He made his own goddamn bed, and he has no clue what it really means to be finished. His fear means nothing to her. Eastwood was right, Jim; you are a weak man. So weak you fail to see the parallels between yourself and that pedophile priest who disgusts you so much. Two men in positions of power, wielding moral authority, abusing trust. Violators who think there’s no reason they shouldn’t just get what they want, and if not, take it.
But Stella is the one who lacks integrity for sleeping with Olson. Right. She used to consider Jim Burns a friend. Now the thought of him sickens her. Fuck him.
* * * *
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?!”
Stella was right; Reed is angry. She’s not yelling, but there’s force behind her words.
“If I remember correctly, it had something to do with having just been rejected by you.” Stella keeps her voice calm, a little light, trying to offset Reed’s simmering rage.
“Oh, come on, Stella, you know that’s beside the point.”
“What do you want me to say?” She sounds resigned, tired. “I shouldn’t even be telling you now. Procedure.”
“Fuck procedure!” Now she’s a yelling a little bit. Reed takes a breath, lowers her voice. “A goddamn serial murderer was in your hotel room late at night, hiding out, and I’m supposed to shrug and accept it when I hear the word ‘procedure?’ When the hell has procedure ever protected you, or me?”
“It hasn’t.”
“Procedure protects the institution,” she continues, resolved. “It protects men.”
“I know,” Stella agrees, validating her ire.
“I want to hurt Jim Burns,” Reed practically seethes through clenched teeth. “I really fucking do.”
“I’ll aid and abet—alibi, getaway car, name it,” Stella offers sweetly.
There’s a beat, and they laugh. It’s not really that funny, but they welcome the release of tension. The absurdity of it all keeps them laughing a bit longer than they might have otherwise, finding solidarity in surviving this world of men. Perspective.
“Why aren’t you here with me?” Reed complains. “Why am I not touching you?”
Stella blushes shyly, and she’s glad Reed can’t see her through the phone. “I don’t know, but it's not fair.” She closes her eyes and leans her forehead against the window, the hint of a wistful smile on her lips.
“Do you want to know what upsets me most?” Reed asks quietly after a short pause.
“Hmm?”
“That I couldn’t be there for you—” Her voice catches slightly.
“I know,” Stella soothes.
“—that I wasn’t given the chance. It’s not right.”
“I’m kissing you in my imagination right now,” Stella says quietly, her eyes closed.
“Come over and kiss me in real life.”
“You’re relentless.”
“Well, I miss your pussy,” she offers as explanation, her tone matter-of-fact.
“So crude, professor,” Stella admonishes, smirking. “Those Croydon manners, are they?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Reed purrs, “should I have said ‘cunt’ instead?”
“Now you’re just being a tease,” she accuses with a laugh.
Reed can tell Stella has a full smile stretched across her face, and it satisfies her like few other things can.
“You know,” she says, thinking aloud, “I could come there and kiss you in real life.”
“What?”
“Tomorrow’s Friday, and Liam has the girls until Monday before school. I bet I could find a cheap flight.”
“Reed. You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to, Stella, but I want to see you. I’m searching fares right now.” Stella can hear typing and mouse-clicks, and she’s a little giddy at Reed’s impulsivity. “I suppose I should ask if you’re free and up for a visitor.”
“I would’ve said already if I wasn’t,” she answers quietly.
“Just want to make sure before I do anything rash, like click ‘confirm reservation’ on this flight that leaves Belfast in three hours.”
“Tonight?” Stella feels a rush of hopeful nerves and a tingle between her legs.
“I’d be there before midnight.”
“Really? You’d just drop everything and hop a flight?” Her voice isn’t incredulous but soft, as if she doesn’t deserve it.
“I told you, I want to see you.” Reed hates that tone; it breaks her heart to think about little Stella, never feeling worthy of love. “How often do we find ourselves in a situation where we can be spontaneous like this?”
“Well, hurry up and get here.”
Reed grins and clicks the button. “Booked.”
Stella grins. “When do you land? Do you want me to pick you up?”
“No, I’d rather you stay home. Relax. Get yourself nice and wet and ready for me to eat as soon as I get there.” Reed is legitimately ravenous at the thought.
“Oh? Is that so?”
“Yes.” Her voice turns a shade darker. “I want you naked, in your bed, touching yourself when I arrive. Can you do that for me?”
“Yeah,” Stella sighs. “For you, I can do that.”
“Good girl,” Reed coos in a voice reserved only for her. Stella’s lack of response is just what Reed is going for. She smiles then says softly, “I better go. I have a couple things to do before I pack and get ready.”
“Mmm. Call me before you board?”
“Okay.” There’s a brief pause; they both smile to themselves. “See you soon.”
They end the call, and Stella immediately strips the linens from her bed and starts working on making the flat presentable.
* * * *
It’s not quite eleven when Reed texts: Just touched down. My mouth is watering.
Stella smiles to herself and texts back: What can I have ready for you? Other than my pussy, of course. Wine?
Neither woman could have anticipated the fairly active sext life they share. Although they agreed never to send nude photos, they flirt and tease and talk dirty on an almost-daily basis. Stella likes to tell Reed when she’s feeling especially needy, likes reminding her of particularly notable moments they’ve had in bed whenever a memory happens upon her. Reed likes to tell Stella when she’s masturbating (or just finished), enjoys providing details of the hows and whats.
-- Wine is good. Be there in 20 mins. Can’t wait to taste you.
-- That’s what I’m imagining right now.
-- Don’t you dare come before I arrive.
When she can’t think of a witty play on “coming” versus “arriving,” Stella decides not to respond. Better to leave Reed to stewing anyway. Smirking, she selects a bottle, uncorks it, and pulls down two wine glasses. She opens the fridge and pulls out a pint of strawberries and a small box from her favorite bakery.
In addition to light cleaning, Stella had gone out earlier to pick up a few things. Fresh flowers for her table; Reed’s favorite coffee; yogurt and eggs for the morning; strawberries and chocolate mousse for tonight. She arranges the wine and dessert on a small tray and brings it into the bedroom, leaving it on her dresser.
When she was cleaning her bathroom an hour ago, she’d pictured Reed showing up to a mostly dark, silent flat. It was more erotic than romantic, and she liked the stillness, the quiet of it. She turns off all but one of the lights, giving Reed just enough to see by, and slides the chain lock out of its slot so she’ll be able to get in. Then she unties her robe and slips it off, letting it fall to the hardwood floor and leaving it there, a pile of champagne silk, about halfway between the front door and the bedroom. Just outside her bedroom door, she slides her panties off and lets them drop, a tiny black lace thing.
Once in her room, she pours their wine and lights a candle. Then she sinks down onto her bed, lies back against the pillows, and wonders how far away Reed might be. She doesn’t really have to touch herself yet; she’s been wet since they ended their phone call this afternoon. It’s incredibly arousing to know that, at any moment, she’ll hear a key slide into the lock. When she imagined this earlier, it’d been from Reed’s perspective. She hadn’t considered how the silence would stretch and deepen her own anticipation.
One hand rises to dust over her nipples and when her breath quickens, it’s amplified in the dimness. Keeping her ears trained on the front door, Stella lets her eyes flutter shut and her head fall back. Reed will be here any minute. Her right hand rests over her mons, and she pushes down with her middle finger, just a little, just to tease and ease the ache. She’s so wet; Reed will be pleased. And that thought sends another rush of wetness from her. She moans and drops her finger to her opening, then up to her clit, where she only allows herself a series of absentminded caresses. No getting carried away.
Stella tenses in excitement at the sound of metal sliding into metal. Deadbolt. Handle. The faint squeak of hinges.
Reed opens the door and is about to call out, announcing her arrival, but the utter stillness she encounters stops her. After tossing her messenger bag on the sofa, she rolls her suitcase in, leaves it by the coatrack, and locks the door. Handle. Deadbolt. Chain. When she steps out of her shoes and turns to hang her jacket, she sees the robe. She inhales sharply and bites her lip. Standing still, she waits, thinking. Then she walks into the kitchen, fills a glass with water, drinks three quarters of it, refills it, and heads back toward that pile of champagne silk. She passes it, her eyes now glued to the smaller, darker bunch of lace marking her destination.
When Reed is about three strides from the bedroom, she hears a moan and stops in her tracks. Smirking, she doesn’t move. The bed creaks. An audible exhalation. A small murmur. Reed unbuttons her shirt while she listens, her own desire throbbing between her legs, then lowers her free hand to the button of her pants, and resumes her approach.
The doorway finally darkens with Reed’s shadow, and Stella turns her head to look up. Reed places the glass of water on the bedside table and, her gaze traveling from the hand buried between legs to heaving erect nipples, shrugs off her shirt. When their eyes meet, they both elicit raspy groans. In the next breath, she’s on top of Stella, sliding a denim-clad thigh between her legs, kissing her and tweaking a nipple at the same time.
“Fuck,” Stella whispers amidst their kisses and gasped greetings. She pulls Reed’s camisole over her head, unhooks her bra, tosses it aside, and is palming at her breasts as they continue to devour each other’s mouths.
As one of Stella’s hands wanders down Reed’s abdomen, on its way to sneak into her already unbuttoned jeans, Reed moves southward, away from its searching caress. All she wants is to please Stella, to take care of her, to be good to her. There is nothing else like this, the two of them in sync. She’s had nothing else like this.
“God, I love that you’re already so close,” she murmurs against Stella’s breast as her fingers come to rest between her legs. Hips roll up, wanting more of her and banishing any ideas Reed may have had about not letting her come too quickly. She’s so wet, so open, practically reaching out and pulling Reed in. It’s the definition of irresistible. There is nothing else to do. One finger sinks in; then a second joins.
They stop, hold still, focus on the unadulterated sensation of this… fusion. Stella doesn’t think she’s ever felt as vulnerable as she does in this moment, and the amazing thing is that her fear only increases her pleasure. It strikes Stella, looking into her lover’s dark eyes as the fingers buried deep within start moving, that she’s never so willingly given herself over, splayed herself open, laid herself bare. Reed asked, and Stella said yes, not because she felt obligated but because she wants this, too. She wants Reed to see her. Stella wants to show her everything.
Stella moans, her eyes glassy. “Please.” Her back is arched, and her pelvis is writhing with Reed’s too-gentle strokes.
Growling, Reed leans down and sucks one of Stella’s nipples into her mouth. Stella never says ‘please.’ She begs in other, generally non-verbal ways, but Reed is almost positive this is the first time she’s uttered a plea aloud. She wants to make her say it again.
“What is it that you want?” Reed asks, nipping at her jaw.
“I want you to fuck me.” She tightens around Reed.
“What else?” she asks, beginning to work with Stella’s rhythm. When she adds a third finger, Reed earns a guttural groan of satisfaction.
“Your tongue.” Stella touches Reed’s mouth, and Reed draws her fingers in, swirling her tongue around them. Watching through eyes distant with need, Stella whispers, “Yeah, like that.”
Reed raises an eyebrow expectantly. It takes Stella a second to catch on, but when she does, her mouth falls open with a sigh.
“Please go down on me,” she gasps, locking eyes with Reed, and there’s nothing but surrender in her dark blue gaze. “Please, baby, I need yo— ohhhh…”
Reed is on her stomach and pulling Stella’s pussy to her face before Stella finishes saying ‘please’ a second time. She goes directly for her clit, lapping at it, encircling it with her tongue, sucking it gently into her mouth. Before long, Stella’s thighs start trembling, and she’s whimpering, helpless. It’s so fucking hot. Reed drags the flat of her tongue across Stella’s clit with intention and feels muscles flutter around her fingers. She starts fucking her harder—not too hard—and flicking her clit with a firm tongue.
Stella starts coming. Reed feels it inside mere moments before she releases a low moan that seems to stretch out from so deep within it isn’t even hers anymore. The self abandoned—annihilated—glorious—cosmic—in overwhelming waves of sensation. She starts shuddering and bucking her hips as her moaning turns into a pure peal of pleasure.
Reed’s head spins the way it always does when Stella climaxes, but this time she thinks she might actually lose herself in it. She’s right there, moving with Stella, but her conscious mind isn’t making any decisions, driven instead by the sensory, the sensual; feeling and touch. Tears rise in Reed’s eyes as Stella’s hips slow and her body relaxes. She kisses her lightly over her hood, and slowly eases her fingers out. Stella’s eyes are closed as Reed slides up and lowers her body on top gently. They kiss and kiss and kiss, lost in the unexpected joy of their bodies together.
At some point, Stella rolls Reed over and tugs her jeans off. Then she tugs her underwear and socks off. Then she starts kissing her everywhere, sweetly, lovingly at first. Then with increasing hunger. Then she makes love to Reed in a seamless, transcendent way that feels like their bodies are aligned with the planets, or like they’re floating out among the stars.
But they’re not (as far as they know) aligned with the planets or floating gravity-free in the stars. They are right here, right now, within a space and time only they inhabit. They are together, entwined in knots intricate and simple all at once. They are the stars and the planets and the cosmos. They call the vastness of a universe into this modest London flat, and it is explosive when Reed’s orgasm hits, like they’re inside an explosion, of a piece with it. It’s their own new galaxy they’re creating, their love filling an unseen darkness with infinite new suns, each one a pinprick of light around which its own possible everything orbits.