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“Oh god, Tequila.” Clarke moans happily as she takes a long slurp of the cold alcoholic drink and chases it with the sugar she swipes off the rim with her finger. “Hmm. Heaven.”
Next to her, Finn groans as he reclines in his lawn chair, sunglasses perched on his nose as he presses the heavily sweating bottle of beer to the side of his face. Even with the tank he is wearing, the hair near his temples is damp. Across from them, Raven and Octavia look like they would happily dive in their own drinks if it were humanely possible. On Clarke’s other side, Monty practically gives himself an ice bath with the cubes from his water cup. It was the New Orleans humidity; so heavy and muggy you could lie down and never want to get up again.
Clarke finds herself glad, suddenly, that she had given in to her friends’ insistence that she come on their spring break trip with them. Strolling around the market stalls near the river in her maxi dress and wide brimmed hat is exactly the kind of Clarke she needs to be. Drunk and half sun-burnt.
No sooner had she noisily sucked up the last of the margarita is the waitress setting down another in front of her along with second servings of everyone else’s drinks. Clarke eyes the tempting pile of frozen slush suspiciously.
“What’s this?” she asks Octavia, who looks unbearably smug. Monty is busying himself with drumming his thumb on the sticky wooden table and looking anywhere but at her. Finn at least has the sunglasses to block his expression, but Raven has the most faux innocent tilt to her face, which is what tips Clarke off. Finally, Octavia shrugs, making the fringe on her bandeau top dance.
“We’re buying you another drink. You deserve it for getting off your ass and coming down here with us instead of moping at home like a pathetic loser and watching twenty straight hours of The West Wing on Netflix.”
Okay, so that was a completely valid description but really, what else were you supposed to do when you just got out of the sordid, secret relationship you were having with your former Political Economy professor??? Diana and she had been really fucked up but in her defense, Clarke had thought it’d be really hot at the time.
Maybe she should stop letting her vagina dictate her life decisions.
“One: it’s a great show, totally worth the binge-watching and the lack of showering. Two: You’re up to something.” Clarke ticks her rebuttals off on her fingers. She levels her friend with a challenging stare, which only makes Octavia more obstinate.
“Why must we—” Raven elbows Octavia, cutting her off.
“Don’t even bother,” she drawls before turning to address Clarke with her best ‘This Is What I Say Is Gonna Happen’ face.
“Okay so we got handed this flyer earlier that invited us to participate in a video some local students are making. We,” and Raven makes sure to emphasize that collective ‘we’, “think it’d be a great way for you to move on from Hot Teach.”
“A video? Raven, I am not going to be in a porno film!”
Finn nearly jack-knifes over in two from the force of laughter that erupts out of him. “A porno- Jesus, Clarke!”
The alcohol is obviously already going to her head. Clarke can only sit sullenly while her friends have a nice laugh at her expense.
“Are you guys done?” She grabs the straw on the new margarita and gives in, drinking deeply. Monty winks at her and pats her on the arm.
“We do it out of love, Clarke.”
“Mhm mm.”
Finn lifts his hips out of the chair and reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a bright green sheet of paper, which he tosses down in front of Clarke before re-settling himself. “Have a look for yourself.”
Clarke unfolds the flyer and sees the black block letters declaring, “Kiss A Stranger!”
“Hm. Sounds like a great way to get mono and I don’t want to end up with some old guy who smokes.” She scrunches her nose up in distaste at the thought.
“Well, the flyer says we have to be interviewed and approved first before they would pair us up and, let’s face it, they’re not going to turn us down.” Octavia swishes her finger in the air as if to indicate their collective hotness. “But if we end up with weirdos, I promise we can run out screaming and go someplace with more good tequila.” They all stare at her expectantly.
“Well…” She hedges.
Raven is rapidly losing her patience, Clarke can see the harsh motions of her hands as precursor to an explosion. “What happened to Clarke Griffin, Party Animal?”
Finn finishes her argument. “The girl who once beat two douchy frat boys at a game of vodka pong because she thought beer pong was ‘too high school’?”
“Besides Bellamy is off being boring and doing research in dusty old archives, we should be aspiring to be cooler than him.” Octavia sits back in her seat and crosses her arms, the silent ‘So there’ implied.
Clarke glances over at Monty, hoping he would be more placating but his judgmental stare only makes her feel more guilty.
Clarke sighs. She had used to be good at having fun. She always worked hard and did well academically, but somehow in the last six months she had turned into a homebody who drank wine alone while watching those interspecies animal friendship videos. And this was spring break.
“Okay. I’m in.” Her acquiescence is met with whoops from Octavia and Monty. Finn claps her on the back.
“That’s the spirit.”
The address on the flyer takes them to an attractive red brick building with an ornate black iron gate in what Clarke is fairly sure was still the Garden District. Odds were it was owned by Tulane University. She would have asked Finn since he kept track of those kinds of details but the second they step through the front door they are being handed clipboards by a harried looking undergrad.
“Here! Fill these out and we’ll get back to you.” She all but shoves them into a crowded waiting area full of what is probably a bunch of college students just like them. Clarke is committed to going with the flow here so she shrugs and starts filling out the form.
Name: Clarke Griffin
Age: Twenty-two
Sex: female
Preferred gender of partner for the video: anything goes. But please make it good, I’m on the rebound and I need my life to not be pathetic for a day.
There are two standard disclosure forms attached and Clarke doen’t bother to read them over before signing her permission for her video to be used and released to the general public. She is carpe-ing this diem. Yolo-ing. Whatever. Humming softly, she goes with Monty to hand over her forms while the others were still finishing theirs up.
It was a good thing she’d had two margaritas, because two hours later Clarke was finally being led into one of the filming rooms—a light, airy room with high ceilings that had been outfitted with a pale blue backdrop. There is a makeup artist on hand to touch her up and Clarke finds herself facing away from the door while some foundation is dabbled on her nose. Naturally, that’s when her partner enters the room. She hears the voice of one of the organizers as she explains the process, but could glean nothing about whomever she’d be making out with. The nerves are starting to set in. Finally, Clarke is able to turn around, just in time to lock gazes with the woman standing ramrod straight not ten feet away.
Clarke’s mouth goes dry.
She has a tall, slim figure outfitted in a stretched out tank top with an unrecognizable band’s name across it—a matching black bandeau the only thing keeping her breasts covered—and a pair of black Capri pants. She looks as if she’d be more at home in a dark, smoky motorcycle bar than this sunny room. Her hair is her glory: a wild cascade of light brown curls gathered off of her face in a mini pouf, the rest falling over her shoulders and halfway down her back. But it’s the even stare in her blue eyes, the sharp cheekbones, and the generous pout of her lips that has Clarke’s heart skipping a beat, though not the one south of the equator.
Fuck. Me.
She can’t lie to herself, Clarke is going to really enjoy being able to kiss this woman. Even if she looks like she would rather be anywhere but here. Clarke’s partner seems to be lowkey glaring at everyone in the room, a noticeable muscle in her jaw clenching. Maybe she had been dragged here by well-meaning friends, too. Clarke could sympathize. And when those eyes focus on Clarke, it feels like being pinned down and bared to scrutiny. They seem rather mismatched, that’s for sure. Clarke is wearing a bright pink maxidress and her partner looks like a punk rocker (maybe).
Clarke smiles kindly at her, and the other woman’s expression momentarily takes on the appearance of a cornered animal before she schools it back into its former aloofness. Well. Clarke’s feet take her over to the center of the backdrop and as soon as the makeup artist is done with her, the other woman steps up to Clarke.
“I’m Clarke,” she says, initiating a handshake, still feeling bold thanks to the tequila.
“Lexa.” Clarke isn’t sure what she had expected, but the smooth, measured voice hadn’t been it. She takes a chance then, and brushes her thumb over Lexa’s knuckles and is rewarded with her eyes fluttering half-closed. She reluctantly lets go of Lexa’s hand.
Now that they know each other's first names, they stand there a mere foot apart, unsure what else ought to be said before they jump into the reason for their presence there. They both turn to Tanna, the senior who had interviewed them earlier.
“Would you like us to start now?” Lexa asks, inclining her head in Clarke’s direction.
Tanna smiles brightly, standing next to the girl monitoring the camera and laptop screens. “We’re already filming- but yes, you can start at your own pace.”
No pressure.
Lexa stands there, silent as a sentinel, her arms loose at her sides. That’s fine with Clarke; she likes taking charge anyways. She steps closer, not making any sudden movements. She wants Lexa to see every move as it comes. And she watches Clarke intently, eyes dropping from Clarke’s eyes down to her lips.
Closer still and their bodies are brushing together, breath fanning lightly across each other’s face. In her sandals, Clarke is slightly shorter than Lexa but she doesn’t have far to go when she places her hands on Lexa’s bare arms and tilts her face up against Lexa’s.
Clarke kisses her slowly but firmly, enjoying this first innocent exploration full of anticipation. She really had missed the way it felt. Lexa’s lips are soft against her own, but they move—capturing Clarke’s top lip in between. Her mouth is tingling. Other body parts are tingling but Clarke does her level best to ignore them for the time being, deepening the kiss.
Her hands grip Lexa’s arms tighter and in turn, Lexa brings her hands around Clarke’s back, propelling her even closer until they are pressed tightly together from breast to belly to thigh. Maybe Clarke forgets about the camera a little bit when she nips lightly at Lexa’s bottom lip and relishes in the soft puff of breath that hits her nose.
Lexa brings one hand up to cup her jaw, thumb stroking over Clarke’s cheekbone in a strangely possessive move that makes her want to pull Lexa down onto the ground and straddle her thigh. But, mindful of their audience, she doesn’t. There’s a push-pull to their kisses that excites Clarke. Like she could keep going for hours and still want more.
Clarke licks against the seam of Lexa’s mouth, asking permission first. Lexa assents, opening wider to allow Clarke to tentatively lick along the side of Lexa’s tongue. Between the heat sinking inside the room and the alcohol still in her system, Clarke feels like she’s floating away.
That’s when Lexa goes on the offensive, thrusting her tongue along Clarke’s and scraping along the roof of her mouth. It’s like she receives an electric jolt and she jerks in shock.
Lexa has a tongue piercing. The rounded metal barbell had just rolled across the sensitive flesh in her mouth and Clarke’s pretty sure she had just let out a whimper. Mind immediately full of all the places she wants Lexa and that tongue piercing to touch, Clarke quits holding herself back so much and lets her hands travel along the graceful curve of Lexa’s spine, feeling the expansion and constriction of her ribcage, before digging her fingers into the expanse of flesh between her shirt and pants.
That tongue is doggedly seeking hers out even as Lexa changes the angle of the kiss, nose brushing over hers—
“Ahem.” The sound of a throat clearing pierces the murkiness of her mind. “I think we’ve got enough here. Thank you, ladies, I have got to say that was amazing. I think we can say with certainty that this one will make it into the final product.”
“Yeah, I’m fanning myself over here and it’s not just because of the humidity!”
Clarke comes to in a daze, eyes furrowing as she pulls back from Lexa’s lips inch by inch. Oh, right. They were here to film a kiss for someone’s project. As she focuses on Lexa’s face, she’s gratified to see the pink in Lexa’s cheeks and the bee-stung appearance of her lips. Those eyes…which are apparently more of a bluish-hazel…are barely visible thanks to the blown pupils and the way her eyelids are half-shut.
“Wow.” Clarke finds herself whispering as she reluctantly lets her hands drop from Lexa’s body. As if shaking herself out of her reverie, Lexa blinks and does the same. Clarke regrets seeing the guarded look reappear on Lexa’s face.
She’s not even sure what Tanna and her classmate say, but in less than five minutes she’s got her hat and bag in hand, following Lexa’s determined strides out of the room.
“Lexa! Lexa, wait!” Clarke grabs her arm when they’re halfway down the hallway and spins Lexa around.
“Hey!” Clarke huffs for breath, suddenly unsure what she had wanted. Just to not watch Lexa walk away and have it be the end of that. Lexa looks so…she’s not sure…angry with herself and her eyes are blazing. Then Clarke thinks of that metal stud.
“Come here.” She issues the verbal command but her fingers are still curled around Lexa’s arm, right beneath the vaguely tribal tattoo she is sporting. There’s a small room on the other side of the door and it’s clearly used as a classroom because there’s an old-fashioned wooden desk there along with a dozen or so student desks. The sun is on the other side of the building so there is barely any light drifting in through the tall windows. The heat is stifling.
Clarke has Lexa backed up against the large desk, her hat and bag falling to the ground forgotten. “I don’t want to stop kissing you just yet,” she admits, studying Lexa’s face in the half-darkness. Whatever façade Lexa had been hiding behind stutters before softening. She swallows hard, then nods.
“I don’t mean to be angry, Clarke. I was just unprepared for how weak I felt back there.”
“Well,” Clarke scours her mind for something appropriate to say. “It’s just us now.”
Lexa’s whispered “yes it is” serves as permission.
This time, it doesn’t start out soft. It’s rougher, then more frantic. Clarke lets her hands feel, lets her fingers tangle in the curls and braids, and enjoys the way Lexa undulates her body against Clarke’s thighs in response. There it is again, the barbell. She lets out a low moan against Lexa’s lips, prompting the other woman to pull back a fraction and look at Clarke with knowing eyes. There’s a hint of a smirk tugging at her lips that makes the arousal pool heavily in her belly.
“You like this,” she says, referencing the barbell.
Clarke isn’t too proud to nod. “I want to feel it on other parts of my body.”
Lexa’s eyes take on a serious slant. She almost opens her mouth to say something but closes it instead and gives Clarke one of those nods accompanied by the lowering of her eyes, something Clarke gets the feeling she uses in lieu of words sometimes. And then she is being spun around and lifted bodily up onto the solid wood. Lexa’s hands move up over her shoulders and down over the curve of her breasts, cupping them lightly.
“You want my mouth…here?” Lexa asks. Rather sardonically, since it could only be obvious where Clarke wanted her. Glaring at her, Clarke holds her gaze as she grips the elastic top of her maxi dress and pushes it down to her waist, baring her breasts to Lexa. Her skin feels thick, more damp with perspiration, but Clarke doesn’t care because the heavy flush of arousal she feels when Lexa turns her covetous gaze downwards is enough.
She’s not shy. She doesn’t wait, or tease either. Lexa simply gives her a look that says ‘challenge accepted’ and bends her head low. Clarke has never been with someone with a tongue piercing before. But she has a healthy imagination.
Fantasies don’t even approach the reality.
Granted, it probably has something to do with skill, which Lexa has in spades as she manipulates first one nipple then another into her mouth, abrading it with the small metal stud. Rolling it around the pebbled flesh. Suckling gently before rapidly feathering the tip of her tongue over it.
Clarke squirms against the hard wood below, using it to rub her aching pussy against something. She lets out more than one throaty moan; a whimper, even. Then Lexa’s name, only it ends up coming out more like ‘Lek-saahh’.
She stops, raises her head, and regards Clarke with a cool look. “Yes, Clarke? Did you want my mouth elsewhere?”
Their lips are scant inches apart now. “Yes,” Clarke tells her, even as they meet again in a kiss, rocking back then forward into another kiss like waves meeting the shore. “You know I want your mouth there.”
“Where?”
“On my cunt.” She stretches the word out, enjoying the harsh consonant sounds—the ‘k’ that pops at the back of her throat before arching out of her mouth and being halted by her teeth, ‘nt’. It’s a word she uses sparingly, because she feels like it needs to have effect.
And it does.
There is a glint of absolute determination in Lexa’s eyes , in the press of her lips as she pushes Clarke steadily onto her back and begins to raise the hem of her dress up over her knees. Clarke feels the familiar lassitude that accompanies desire fill her limbs, making them fall weakly to the side.
Lexa’s hands are there, spreading her knees wide and holding them there. She still has her sandals on, which is an odd thing to drive home the absolute kinkiness of the situation. And her panties, come to think of iii—
“Oh!” She lets out the small exclaim of surprise when Lexa licks the broad plane of her tongue, barbell and all, up along the flimsy cotton barrier covering her vulva. More, more, she needed more.
Instead, she gets another slow lick, this time with a pause against her clitoris and just the hint of the metal stud has her canting her hips against the muscle. She can’t hold her hips off the desk for long—she was an infrequent visitor to the university gym, preferring to stare at the amazing abs rather than sculpt them on herself—and she has to drop away from that tongue. But Clarke isn’t one to just lie back and wait for something to be given to her. She has ways to encourage people.
“I’m so wet. Lexa…” She lets out a breathy sigh.
Manipulative? Yes. But all’s fair when it came to orgasms, was her philosophy.
“You’re going to have to help me, then, Clarke.” Fingers curve into the band of her panties. Clarke bites her lip and gives her a grateful nod as she raises her hips off the desk once more, helping Lexa pull the damp material down and over her knees.
Clarke truly wishes she had the vocabulary to describe the way Lexa looks at her before she bends her head back down low. Maybe the expression will be seared in her mind long enough to sketch it out later. But then that maddening tongue is back on her, with no barrier between it and the slippery flesh of Clarke’s vulva.
Her head falls back against the desk with a dull thud and it’s like her entire body arcs in tandem with the journey from bottom to top. She squirms when the barbell teases against the hood of her clitoris, toes tensing inwards at the sharp pleasure. And just like that, any sense of shame melts away. Clarke meets Lexa’s eyes across the planes of her body and just asks for whatever she can give. Her hands reach down, brushing past Lexa’s face to tangle loosely in her hair, liking the feel against the soft skin of her thighs.
Lexa stops teasing her then. Clarke’s world narrows into a dark whirlwind of want, simply reacting to the sensations as they come. When Lexa begins doing to her clit what she had done to her nipples earlier—flicking the barbell against the throbbing nub—Clarke tenses her entire body, holding it up against the source of torment, moaning loudly enough she’s surprised nobody’s come knocking on the door.
Everything tightens into a single point and it’s barely one flick, then another, then another and—
Lexa follows her body down as her bottom spanks against the desk, abdominal muscles clenching and trembling visibly as the ripples of her orgasm move through her. She doesn’t stop tonguing her through it, no matter how Clarke twists or squirms. Not until every last spasm has been wrung out of her.
The heaviness in the air settles on top of her, then, along with a flush of sweat and Clarke can only lie there, limbs akimbo, and gasp for air while Lexa presses a sweet kiss into the damp skin of her inner thigh.
Another kiss against her hipbone.
Her seventh rib.
Sternum.
Where the sweat had pooled against her throat. Jaw.
Lips.
Clarke returns the kiss, with more tenderness than she would have thought possible. And then Lexa is looking down at her, lips glistening, eyes blinking in wonder. “Was that how you thought it would be?”
“Better.” Clarke answers her honestly. Her hands are running up and down Lexa’s sides, pulling her on top of her half-naked body, into the cradle of her thighs. She goes for the button on Lexa’s jeans, desperately wondering how easily her fingers would glide through the lips of her vulva. Wondering what kinds of sounds she could rend from Lexa’s throat.
A loud chime breaks through the thick silence of the room. Lexa sighs and seems to collapse against Clarke’s body. “I’m sorry. That will be my friends, they are probably wondering where I have gotten to. We’re supposed to go to dinner after this.”
Clarke bites her lip, sighing in disappointment. “Mine are probably calling my phone too, except I turned even the vibrate off. It doesn’t seem fair that I don’t get to make you come.” It feels so nice, having another body against hers again. The sharp protuberance of ribs and hipbones, the weight pressing her down. Then it’s gone.
“Are you doing anything later tonight after dinner?” Clarke finds herself asking.
Lexa considers her yet unspoken offer, looking as if she should say no. “Won’t your friends miss you?”
“They’ll understand.” That’s not an exaggeration.
There it is again, that phantom smile on Lexa’s face. “Very well. Give me your phone and we’ll exchange numbers.”
Clarke scoots off the desk, not sparing a thought to whether it’d be cleaned before class meets next, and fishes her phone out of her bag. Lexa busies herself with entering numbers between Clarke’s phone and her own while she reluctantly slides her cool and sticky panties back up over her hips. Her dress is righted by the time Lexa is handing her phone back.
“Well, until we meet again, Clarke.” An incline of her head and Lexa is stepping close for one last kiss before she saunters out of the classroom.
For her part, Clarke is downright disoriented as she follows a minute later, suddenly able to breathe easier in the cooler, ventilated hallways. She stumbles outside into the light and all but collapses on a bench under the shade of a magnolia tree. She can't help the bark of laughter that erupts from her then, giddy even as her muscles are wobbly from the force of her earlier climax. And Clarke just can't help herself right then.
"Still got it," she whispers, scrunching her face up.
Raven and Octavia were going to be so, so pissed at her and it was glorious.