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Shaw’s not so familiar with the fuzzy, slippery space between waking and sleep. She’s trained herself to be like a lightswitch, on and off in seconds, ready to grab whatever scant minutes of unconsciousness she can or strike hard from sleep. She doesn’t do lazy Saturdays.
This is nice, though. Quiet. Just her easing out of it, shifting in the sheets, taking stock of her aches and her pains. There are a lot of those, these days. Not superficial, gone-in-a-day type injuries, although she has those too, but things that are bone deep, things that come from somewhere in the darkest parts of her spine and her joints. She stretches, long and luxurious, bracing her heels against the mattress so her body arcs off the bed and the cuffs around her wrists rattle. Her back cracks, a sharp, satisfying snap, and she settles back, content to shift in and out of sleep for a while.
“I don’t even smoke,” Veronica says.
Shaw opens one eye. Veronica’s sitting on the bed beside her with her pale, unblemished back turned to Shaw and her dark tangle of hair throwing stormy clouds over her shoulder.
Veronica’s name is not Veronica. Neither one of them is buying into that little lie, not since five minutes after Shaw met her, but Veronica doesn’t want to tell Shaw her real name and Shaw doesn’t care to call her by it. That’s not what this is about.
The pseudonym is just a convenience, something to scream in the dark.
“What?” Shaw asks, rolling as far as she can to one side. Hair falls in her face and she blows, shakes her head until it’s no longer tickling her eyelashes.
“I don’t smoke,” Veronica repeats as she sweeps cigarette butts off the mutilated bedside table and into a hotel wastebasket. “I never liked the smell.”
“So open a window.”
“But I bought a pack of cigarettes yesterday, because I knew I’d be seeing you, Sam.” She turns, puts a hand on Shaw’s burn-dappled thigh. “Don’t you think that’s a little strange?”
Shaw shrugs, shifts flat on her back as Veronica’s carefully manicured fingers ease between her legs. “I think it’s between you and your shrink,” she says as her head tilts back and her legs part and Veronica’s fingers trace ticklish circles on her inner thighs.
The tickle is replaced with sharp nail, harsh and momentary and soothed away just as quickly. “Oh, Sammy,” Veronica says in that bouncy, girlish way she has when she’s telling a joke, when she’s saying something sweet while doing something monstrous. “I think you’re missing the point.”
Shaw gives in. “What is the point?”
Soft fingers slide deep into her pussy, seeking, and Shaw finds that she’s still wet. Veronica’s thumb finds her tender clit, sensitive to the point of being sore, and starts to rub the pad of her thumb over it while her fingers move in and out. “The point,” she says, over Shaw’s quiet, throaty groan, “is that I was thinking of you.”
“Yeah?” Shaw squirms, rolls her hips, locks one leg around Veronica’s body in an attempt to drag her close.
“Yes.” Veronica is bending forward, stamping neat, clean, passionless little kisses on each of the scars that dot Shaw’s muscled thighs and stomach and chest. “I wonder. I don’t think about other people too often.” She settles down like Shaw’s some kind of body pillow, chin resting on her forearm, forearm braced against the arc of Shaw’s ribs, hand brushing at the underside of Shaw’s breast, other hand working fast and hard between Shaw’s legs. “Even hurting them. A lot of people like me think about it all the time, but it’s not so special to me. Just a means to an end. Unless,” and here she pauses, eases a third finger in alongside the other two, starts fucking fingers into Shaw as rough as before without giving her a chance to adjust, “unless it’s with someone who really gets under my skin.”
“Weird. Might be…uhn.” Shaw shudders, gets herself under control, and swallows. “Might be all those times we tried to kill each other. Ruining the mood.” She digs her heel hard into Veronica’s back, locks her in.
Veronica’s mouth curves gentle, eyes bright and Disney-huge. “Don’t be silly. I would never kill you.” Her head tilts, eyes flick upward thoughtfully. Her thumb begins to move with purpose against Shaw’s clit. “Well. Never say never, right?”
Sharp white teeth close on Shaw’s nipple as the thumb presses hard and moves in circles and the fingers deep in her body curl hard and Shaw is arching, kicking, thrashing in the sheets with her teeth bared and when she bites down, Veronica’s tongue is in the way.
She lies there, stretched out and panting as Veronica cleans up. She washes her hands and her face in the bathroom, runs a comb through her hair so it looks less like she just got fucked. She slips into bra and stockings and the little black dress, neat and sensible, like she came from work. She’s strapping on her low black heels and hunting out her handbag when Shaw asks, “Are you going to uncuff me?”
Veronica doesn’t respond at first, just peers into her handbag, flipping through its contents and counting it out to make sure Shaw hasn’t taken anything. “The keys are in the drawer of the nightstand,” she says, without looking up. Her tongue appears in the corner of her mouth, wet and pink. “And housekeeping shouldn’t be in until noon. I believe in you.”
“Sleep with one eye open,” Shaw spits.
“I already do.” She looks up, brightens. “See you around, Sam!” and just like that she’s gone.
Shaw hasn’t had a lazy Saturday in a long time, but she doesn’t have much of a choice. She spends an hour on her back, shifting and straining and stretching her legs until it’s less an escape attempt and more yoga, but she opens the drawer with her foot and from there, it’s pretty easy.
She sits up for the first time in hours, rolls her shoulders and rubs her wrists and brushes tangles out of her hair. The pack of cigarettes, half used, is still there on the nightstand. Shaw has one. They were, after all, bought for her.