Archive of Our Own

Five days before Christmas, on an afternoon so bitter-cold that no one is buying hot chocolate and Robin is considering packing up her stand early, an angel appears to her.

The angel, of course, is in the form of a beautiful woman, dressed in an immaculate peacoat, with a scarf Robin can only assume is cashmere wrapped around her neck, and tan leather gloves practically molded to her elegant hands.

She buys a cup of hot chocolate—the only one Robin has sold in an hour, so she needs to make a fresh pot, but the woman waits while she does it—and takes it over to a bench by the fountain, rather than leaving altogether.

And she watches Robin. She sits there, with every impression of comfort despite the freezing weather, and she sips delicately at her hot chocolate, and she watches Robin.

When she’s done, she comes up to Robin’s stand, to toss the cup into the nearby bin, and she smiles down at Robin.

“You have quite the talent for that,” she says, in a smooth, manicured voice. “It’s good to see an ambitious young woman.”

Robin, despite herself, blushes. “Not that ambitious,” she mumbles, because she’d been hoping that the woman would ask for something other than hot chocolate. She hasn’t done much of that, really. She’s shown off her small breasts in the park toilets three times now, and she’d sold a pair of panties to a woman who’d tugged down her scarf to shove her entire face into them. She might do more for this woman, if she would only ask.

The woman just smiles. “No, I can see it in you,” she corrects. “Would you like to join me for a drink? I know this cute little place.”

Robin looks at the woman’s offered glove, palm up, and looks at her stand, and makes a decision. “I need to pack my things up, first,” she says. She’s been thinking of closing early, and now she’s certain that it’s the correct decision.

“Of course,” the woman says, her smile easy, her plush lipstick a sort of brownish-purple-red against straight white teeth. “When you’re ready, then.”

Robin packs with more haste than she’s ever had before. A drink. A drink could mean a great many things. “That’s everything,” she says, once she’s gotten it all into her two large tote bags. “I—I’m going to need to bring these, I’m sorry.”

“That’s fine,” the woman says. “Why don’t we put them in the boot?”

And Robin does, when the woman opens it with a single press on her key-fob. “That’s fancy,” she observes, and then blushes, when the woman turns to look at her.

“It is, isn’t it?” she says, instead of chiding Robin. “It’s electric.” She runs her hand over the smooth, gunmetal paint of the car, barely touching it. “It saves me quite a bit in petrol.” Robin looks at her dubiously. She doesn’t look like she cares about saving money. “Well, it’s certainly better for the environment,” she says, shaking her head in a self-conscious motion that looks anything but.

She opens Robin’s door for her, and supports her arm as she gets inside, an unnecessary gesture that feels far too intimate for a public park. The car is oddly spacious and cramped, a glassy bubble of slick black screens.

“Thank you,” Robin says, once the woman’s settled herself into the driver’s seat. “For—asking me to join you.”

The woman smiles, starting the car with the press of a button. It whirs quietly, obediently to life, and the woman leans back to check out the back window, even though there’s a camera feed on the screen in front of her. “Of course I invited you,” she says, hand resting on the back of Robin’s seat, close enough that Robin can almost feel the leather of her glove on her neck. “You did look quite cold out there.”

“I wasn’t really,” Robin lies. She’s always cold, with the way Bailey won’t ever turn the heat high enough, and the thin, worn fabric of the clothes she can find secondhand. She knows you’d insist on letting her buy something newer and better if you found out it wasn’t enough, but with the mittens, her school cardigan and long skirt only leave her chilly, not freezing. She shivers.

The woman obviously catches it, but her expression isn’t cruel, simply pleased that she’s won. She presses a button on the dashboard. “You could have just said something,” she chides, as warmth begins to flow into Robin’s back and thighs. “There’s no cause to suffer in silence.”

Robin blushes. “I wasn’t suffering,” she says. “I was just cold.”

“When you have nice things, there’s no reason not to use them,” the woman says. She turns onto another street. “Ah, here we go.”

Robin’s seen the building the woman pulls up outside of before. It’s one of the new blocks of flats, the shiny ones by the offices, and there’s a few restaurants on the ground floor. All of them look expensive.

“Here?” Robin asks, looking out the window at a sign promising wild-caught fish.

“Just around the corner,” the woman says, stepping out of her side of the car. She reappears at Robin’s door, opening it. “A bit removed from parking, but well-worth it.”

Robin lets the woman take her arm, giddy with the touch and the promise.

The cafe is cute, small and classic and cozy. It’s filled with art prints and lamps, and the woman orders for herself and Robin at the counter while Robin sits in a high-backed armchair with her bags at her feet.

The woman returns, already peeling her gloves off. Her hands are pretty, delicate nails balanced atop slender fingers. They look clever. They look like she hardly needs to use them.

“They’ll bring our drinks out shortly,” the woman says, setting her purse and gloves down on the table. “I hope you won’t mind that I took the liberty of ordering for the both of us.”

“I don’t mind,” Robin answers. She’s being honest. She wouldn’t know what to order at a place like this.

The woman smiles. “That’s quite accommodating,”she says. She sits. Even the way she sits is pretty. “Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

Robin doesn’t really know what she’s supposed to say. “My name is Robin,” she says, and the woman smiles at her. “I… I’m a student. I mean, it’s the holidays now, but that’s what I usually am.”

“I remember when I was a student,” the woman says. “Do you have a favorite subject?”

“History,” Robin answers. “Winter’s really great. She’s… she does a lot of demonstrations with historical clothing.”

The woman smiles. “I remember Winter,” she says. “I imagine you’d look quite darling in one of those uniforms she keeps.”

Robin fidgets with the tablecloth. “I… sorry,” she says, trying to keep her hand still. “I don’t want to be too forward, but… is this a date?” She wants it to be a date. She wants to be the center of this woman’s world.

The woman smiles. “I’d like it to be,” she says. “If you would.”

“I would,” Robin agrees, smiling sincerely. “I’d—I’d really like it to be a date.”

“And forgive me,” the woman says, shaking her head in a way that Robin doesn’t think is actually apologetic. “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Avery.”

You’d had a rich girlfriend, for a while, but that had ended. Badly, Robin thinks. She had never asked for details, and you had never volunteered them. But she’d known the woman’s name.

This is her. This is the Avery who you aren’t going out with anymore.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Robin says, after what she feels is too long a pause. “I—I’ve never been on a date before.”

It’s the closest she’s ever going to get to you.

Avery smiles. It’s a shockingly kind smile. “It’s nice to be someone’s first,” she says, enigmatically. Robin can’t stop her blush. It’s the kind of image she doesn’t like to ponder in daylight.

A waitress emerges from behind the counter, carrying two drinks on a little tray. “For you,” she says, passing a cup of coffee to Avery. “And for your date.”

The mug she hands Robin is warm and fragrant, a rich, spicy scent rising out of it.

“Thank you,” Robin says, lifting it to her lips, The sip she takes is bitter, burning oddly in her throat, and it’s all she can do to keep from coughing.

“It’s mulled wine,” Avery explains. She quirks her lips. “You seemed like you’d like to warm up a bit.”

“I did,” Robin says, taking a second, smaller sip. The burn isn’t as bad, when she’s expecting it. “It’s… nice.”

Avery takes a sip of her own coffee. “I thought it would be,” she says.

“I’ll be back with your food in a few,” the waitress says.

“Oh!” Robin says. “You didn’t need to.”

Avery chuckles. “You’re skin and bones,” she says, and compared to Avery, Robin certainly is. “And what do I have all of this for, if not to help out a young woman so clearly in need of it?”

Robin ducks her head. The recognition is embarrassing. “That’s very kind,” she says. It’s hard for her to ask questions. Avery doesn’t leave many lines available to her. “What do you do for work?”

“Pharmaceuticals,” Avery says, with the world’s most dignified eye-roll. “Although I don’t work directly with our products any longer.”

“Oh, for medicine?” Robin asks, curious.

Avery smiles. “Something like that,” she says. “I was chief of operations before I was appointed managing director.”

“That must have been difficult,” Robin says. “And a big change.”

“It was,” Avery says. She takes a sip of coffee. “And not one that everyone approved of.” She smiles. “Although I was able to handle that.”

“Good,” Robin says, hesitantly. The more she talks, the less of her wine she has to drink. Avery looks pleased with it anyway.

“You know,” Avery says. “Women like us need to look out for each other.”

Robin blinks. “Women like us?” she asks. Avery is so much more than her, in so many ways. If Robin is a pencil sketch of a woman, Avery is a front-page headline.

Avery looks Robin pointedly up and down, before allowing her gaze to settle on Robin’s mouth. “I do have eyes,” she murmurs, Robin her only audience. “The way you were looking at me wasn’t particularly subtle, darling.”

“I’m sorry,” Robin says.

Avery reaches out to set her hand over Robin’s. “It’s flattering,” she says. “And we’ve established that this is a date. I’d be more worried if you weren’t looking.”

“Oh,” Robin says, and she relaxes, and lets herself look. She doesn’t do that very often. Usually, she only looks when you aren’t paying attention.

Avery taps her fingers on the table, not impatient, just a reminder that they’re there, elegant and manicured. Some of her nails are cut shorter than the others.

And then Avery’s phone rings, loud and bright in the cozy cafe.

“Do you need to get that?” Robin asks, and Avery tugs out her phone and sighs.

“Work,” Avery says, sounding irritated. “It never ends, does it?”

“No,” Robin says, sad that Avery is leaving. She had been thinking…

“I’ll be in touch, darling,” Avery says. “Are you free Saturday evenings?”

“Yes,” Robin says, immediately, and then she feels disappointed in herself for giving one-word answers. She thinks that she would feel ineloquent in Avery’s presence regardless, but it’s rather difficult to prove that.

“Good,” Avery says. “Eight o’clock. Wear something formal. There’s a dress code at the restaurant I plan to take you to.”

She hesitates, and then strokes her thumb over Robin’s hand. And then she leans in.

Robin knows what to do. She tilts her face, a little, like in the movies, so that Avery’s lips meet hers.

They’re as soft as she’d imagined. Avery’s lipstick tastes a bit like blackcurrant. Avery presses closer, clutches onto Robin’s hand as she deepens the kiss a bit, pushes back more.

But just a bit. Robin’s still reeling from it as Avery pulls back, smiling. “I’ll see you around,” she says, and then she’s picked up her purse and left the cafe, well before Robin can say anything.

“Your soup,” the waitress says, as Robin stares out the door, trying to watch Avery leave.

“Oh!” Robin leans back, so that the waitress can set the bowl on the table. It’s orange, with a thick texture, and some sauce drizzled on top. “Thank you. Uh—she left. You don’t need to bring her order out.”

The waitress raises her eyebrows. “She only ordered for you,” she says.

Well. Perhaps the interruption wasn’t an interruption at all.

Robin lifts a spoonful of the thick, spicy soup to her mouth, and allows herself to wonder.

On Saturday, Robin helps you get ready for work. There’s a part of her that wants you to help her get ready for her date, but that would mean telling you about Avery, and she doesn’t want to do that yet. Not while you have a chance to talk her out of it.

You would talk her out of it. You don’t like the things she does in the park. You’d insisted that she only do things for women, once she’d admitted that she wasn’t attracted to men, and you’d made her promise to stop if people ever started talking.

She’d bought clothes for this. A dress, the cheapest one she could find, in a soft shade of blue that the cashier had promised complemented her coloring. It doesn’t feel right, on her, tight in all the wrong ways, despite the fact that it’s her size. Wearing it now, Robin looks in the mirror and wonders if Avery would let her just wear her school clothes.

But she brushed your hair out, and helped you put it up. The fall of it around your shoulders is smooth, when she works on it. You hardly ever have the patience to brush it out.

Avery is leaning against her car, when Robin walks out, hoping that her school shoes aren’t too obvious under the hem of the dress. She’s wrapped in dark purple silk, cut in a way that only emphasizes her generous curves. Her hair is up, and her long, elegant neck is shown off to great effect.

“You look really pretty,” Robin blurts, too stunned by the truth to stop it from pouring out of her lips.

Avery smiles. “Aren’t you a treat,” she says, looking Robin up and down, and Robin blushes and smiles. “Why don’t you get in? It’s not far.”

Robin actually looks at the car for the first time, and she’s shocked that she’d managed to ignore it in favor of Avery. It’s this gleaming alien thing, bright blue-green with dark tinted windows, the lines of it sweeping in a way that makes it look like a cat resting on its haunches, about to pounce. Avery, thankfully, gets her door, so Robin doesn’t have to risk touching the thing.

The inside of the car smells like leather and like the scent Robin is beginning to recognize as Avery, a little bit of flowers and burnt sugar. It’s filled with the same soft curves as the exterior of the car, the gearshift and instrument panel flowing down between the seats. She sits gingerly, doing up her seatbelt as delicately as she can manage.

“You don’t have to treat it like it’s made of glass,” Avery says, amused, from the driver’s seat.

“I don’t—” Robin says, and then decides that she might as well say it out loud. They’re in private. “It looks expensive. I don’t want to mess it up.”

“It was,” Avery says. She looks pleased to have her wealth brought up. “Around one-and-a-half million, to be precise.” She taps her fingers on the wheel. “Well worth it, don’t you think?”

Robin doesn’t allow herself to flinch. That’s over a decade of payments to Bailey. And Avery spent that on a car. She already has a car. “It’s a beautiful car,” she says, since that’s true.

Avery smiles. “I know I promised to take you directly to the restaurant, but…” She tugs her mobile out, dialing a number.

“Oh, you don’t need to…” Robin starts, but Avery’s call has already connected.

“Yes,” Avery says, upon clearly being greeted. “Yes, I am. I’d like you to push it back… mm, half an hour?” She looks over at Robin. “Frankly, I don’t care. You’ll manage. You certainly still owe me for that little incident.”

Robin stays still, as the person on the other end apologizes—Avery’s expression changes, from irritated disinterest to pride, so Robin can tell the person she’s called is apologizing.

“Thank you,” Avery says, and hangs up. “Now, why don’t we go for a drive? I’ll show you what she can do.”

“You’re—it’s really okay?” Robin asks. Avery looks at her quizzically, hands poised on the wheel. “Only, you said that we would be late, I don’t want to put anyone out.”

Avery shakes her head. “I already called, darling,” she says. “They’ll hold our table.”

“Okay,” Robin says, trying to relax. The car smells nice, and Avery is nice, and she can allow herself to like it.

The engine thrums to life beneath them, a rolling, thorough purr. Avery reaches to the glove compartment. “You don’t mind holding these for me a moment, do you?” she asks, extracting a pair of oxblood penny loafers.

“Not at all,” Robin says, as Avery tugs off one heel, then the other.

“One of my favorite pairs,” she explains, passing them to Robin and taking the loafers. “But If I’m really driving, I ought to enjoy it.” She adjusts her seat again, and brings the car out of park, and it practically pulls them along, the overpowered engine tugging the car into the road.

Robin cradles Avery’s shoes in her hands. Even her shoes smell nice, not like the locker rooms at school or the faint reek of stale sweat on Robin’s.

She probably doesn’t wear these very much. She probably has other pairs.

Robin shouldn’t be jealous. She isn’t.

Avery guides the car out of town, slipping easily through the streets. She’s a bit careless with it, her first reaction to amber signals being to speed up, barely clearing the intersection, and Robin holds on to the heels instead of holding on to the car. No one spends over a million pounds on a car if they don’t know how to drive it.

And then Avery pulls the car onto the road outside of town, and she looks over at Robin, and the grin she’s wearing takes years off of her face. “Ready to see what she’s capable of?” she asks, and she revs the engine a little bit.

Robin does grab on, at that point, and she smiles bravely at Avery. “I’m ready,” she promises, thinking about the delayed reservation. Avery’s going to all of this trouble for her. She ought to be grateful.

Avery opens the throttle, and the car soars forwards, acceleration enough that Robin is pressed back into her seat, and she worries, for a moment, that something is wrong. Avery is delighted with it, though, and so Robin tries to make herself calm down.

It is fun. The hedgerows outside the windows fly past, breaking up the snow-covered fields, and the roads are empty. Robin’s only ever ridden the bus before, and the difference is night and day. Avery’s car is car is low to the ground and powerful, not the rattling height of the bus.

Robin relaxes, a bit, hands no longer gripping harshly onto her seat and Avery’s heels, and she sets one of them atop Avery’s on the gearshift.

“You’d like to try?” Avery asks, and then she slips her hand out from under Robin’s. Robin has a moment to panic—only a moment—before Avery resettles her hand above Robin’s. “Like this.”

“Okay,” Robin says, as Avery slows down to take a corner, and moves Robin’s hand and the gearshift both. She’s not driving, but she can still feel the gears engage beneath her palm.

“Maybe I’ll teach you,” Avery says. She glances at the dashboard. “Perhaps later, though. We do have dinner reservations.”

She takes the car back through town, at a more sedate pace, and Robin, no longer quite so nervous, is able to enjoy it.

The restaurant is, like the cafe, on one of the upscale portions of Connudatus street, and Avery walks in like she owns the place, passing by the maître d’ without more than a cordial nod. Robin follows in her wake, towards a table already set for two. There’s a bottle of wine and two glasses set out.

“Oh,” Robin says, because she didn’t bring her school ID. “I don’t—”

“Need to worry about that,” Avery finishes, taking a seat. A waitress emerges from somewhere behind Robin, presenting the bottle to Avery for her approval.

Avery nods, and so the waitress pours, golden liquid swirling into the glasses.

Robin takes hers, mirroring Avery’s movements as best she can. It’s an odd and uncomfortable way to hold a glass. She doesn’t really mind it.

Avery lifts her glass as Robin watches, breathing in the scent of her wine before taking a sip. “Perfect vintage,” she says, her whole body relaxing. The waitress smiles, and leaves a menu on the table.

Robin sips the wine delicately, feeling warm all over and very grown-up. She can’t taste very much past the burn of the alcohol, but she suspects that it’s good. She’s certain that, no matter how good it is, it’s expensive. “It’s nice,” she says, for lack of anything better to say. She takes another sip. It’s sour.

Avery laughs. “You’ll get used to it,” she promises. “I forget, sometimes, that not everyone grew up in a house with an unlocked liquor cabinet.”

Robin barely grew up in a house. She takes another sip, and then, looking for an excuse to set her wine down, reaches for the menu instead.

“See something you like?” Avery asks, one eyebrow raised.

Robin scans the menu for the least expensive item. “The chicken sandwich looks good,” she says, because it isn’t—she can imagine spending that much money on a dinner. The rest of the things…

“You aren’t ordering that,” Avery says, tugging the menu out of Robin’s hands. “That side of the menu is for lunch, darling.” She shakes her head. “It’s my treat. I’d like to see you enjoy something nice.” Her smile turns just the slightest bit mean. “It doesn’t seem like you do enough of that.”

Robin blushes, shame crawling up her throat. “I—I know,” she says, and she knows Avery has the money for it, but she still thinks about the way your face twitches when she gives you £300 each week, the way she knows it’s not enough.

She gets to live, and she gets to be safe, but it feels like cheating to allow herself to enjoy it.

The waitress returns, and Avery turns to her with a cordial smile. “The bouillabaisse for me, I think,” Avery says, as the waitress hurries to pick up her pen.

“The bouillabaisse,” the waitress repeats. She turns to Robin. “And for you?”

“She’ll have the tuna Niçoise,” Avery says, finger on the menu. “And another glass of the white for us each.”

Robin doesn’t really like fish, but she doesn’t argue. Avery is paying for her, after all.

The waitress vanishes as seamlessly as she’d arrived, back into the flow of traffic around the restaurant.

“It’s good to get a chance to relax,” Avery says, after a long sip of wine. “You know, I had quite the week at work.”

Robin feels Avery’s foot brushing against her ankle. “You did?” she asks, trying to ignore it.

Avery is smiling, despite her complaints. “Oh, yes,” she says, sliding her foot up Robin’s calf. Robin tries not to jump—she’s not ticklish, but Avery’s toes are brushing her knee. “We’ve been in the process of acquiring another company, and there are far too many meetings involved. And apparently, I need to be in all of them.”

Avery’s foot was under Robin’s dress, but now it’s under Robin’s dress, working its way in between Robin’s thighs. Robin tries to keep her voice steady. “I’m sorry,” she says. “That they can’t just—listen to you.” Avery’s toes wriggle against a ticklish spot on her inner thigh, and Robin jumps, and tries to get away from Avery’s toes, and the position she ends up in is compromising.

“It truly is a trial,” Avery agrees, like the ball of her foot isn’t right up against Robin’s cunt. Robin can feel it through the thin fabric of her panties, a hint of pressure, and she can feel her own heartbeat against it. “I didn’t spend a decade building this company only for my subordinates to decide that they’re incapable of acting without my micromanagement.”

“Yeah,” Robin says. She feels like syllables are somewhat beyond her. Her panties are getting wet. “Do you—do you want to talk about it?”

Thankfully, Avery does. She even forgets to keep moving her foot when she gets really into it. Robin learns about the situation—Avery’s COO, a man named Dawson, appears to be willfully putting his career on the line, and while Avery wouldn’t mind letting him go, she’d like it to wait until the two companies are fully merged. Robin smiles and nods at what she thinks are the right times, and avoids grinding her hips into Avery’s foot with the last of her rapidly dwindling willpower.

The waitress re-emerges, bearing a platter, and she places the dishes onto the table with practiced efficiency, pouring a second glass of wine for Avery, and topping up Robin’s. Avery, in the fuss, removes her foot from between Robin’s legs, and Robin doesn’t know whether or not to be thankful for it.

Avery’s soup looks delicious. Robin’s is apparently a salad, which is a relief. If she dislikes the fish, there’s at least vegetables there for variety. Plenty of them, too, and boiled eggs, and potatoes.

Avery notices her looking at it. “Their preparation is a bit nontraditional,” she says, one hand already on her spoon. “They sear the tuna, rather than shredding it.”

“It looks interesting,” Robin says, examining the meat. It’s still pink, with only the edges cooked. It makes her nervous. At the orphanage, everything gets cooked—usually boiled—to within an inch of its life. Meat is grey and stringy, since no one ever got sick off of overcooked meat.

She takes a bite. For fish, it isn’t that bad. The texture is weird. “Do you like it?” Avery asks.

Robin nods, to be polite, and swallows. “I’ve never had anything like it before,” she says truthfully.

Avery’s drinking delicately from her spoon. Robin watches her lips. When Avery puts the spoon down, she smiles. “I thought you would enjoy it,” she says, which means that it worked.

They spend a busy few moments eating. Robin takes the salad one piece at a time, trying to alternate between the different components. The fish is worth dealing with, because the eggs are delicious. Avery’s soup appears to be a particular favorite of hers, and she’s drinking it instead of talking to Robin.

This must have been how you felt, on your dates with Avery. It’s nice, even if it’s boring, and Robin wonders why you broke up with her. It couldn’t have been that bad, Robin thinks.

It might be the wine loosening her tongue. “You were—you were dating my friend, weren’t you?” Robin asks. Avery’s eyes immediately snap to her, but she continues. “Before?”

“Is this really the time, darling?” Avery asks, tapping her spoon against the bowl. “I ended things with her. It was… certainly a long time coming.”

“It was?” Robin asks, curious. You’d seemed to not really care about it, in the kind of way that meant you did care about it. She’d asked, when you’d stayed in her room on a Saturday night, and you’d just said that wasn’t happening anymore.

Avery rolls her eyes. “She’d been cheating on me the entire time we were together,” she says. “With some boy from her school.”

Robin knows about Whitney. How could she not? She shares an English class with him, and so when she walks in in the mornings, he’ll lean over and shove his phone in her face, and she’ll see you.

She’s seen a lot of you, by this point. She’s seen Whitney’s cock in your mouth. She’s seen you sitting on a toilet, and she’s glad Whitney closed the video before the inevitable. She’s seen you taking your panties off. She’s seen Whitney’s cum dripping out of your pussy.

Whitney seems to relish showing you off, especially to her. He seems like he knows how Robin feels about you.

At least he only does it when she first walks in. The one time Doren caught him, he actually pulled Whitney out of the classroom by his arm, and Robin got an entire class period with total peace and quiet.

Robin tries to look away, and she tries to avoid Whitney.

If he knew she liked it, he’d stop doing it.

So if she sees the images again, in her mind’s eye, late at night with a pillow shoved between her legs, no one else needs to know about it.

“Oh,” Robin says. She can’t defend you. She doesn’t know that she would.

Avery gestures with her spoon—there’s nothing on it, fortunately—and sighs deeply. “And worse, she’s been spreading her legs for any man with £5 to spend,” she says. “No matter how I tried to satisfy her. And I did try.” The look she gives Robin is very meaningful. Robin squeezes her thighs together and does her best not to think about how, exactly, Avery might try.

“I’m sorry she did that to you,” Robin says. She… she knows the economics of the situation. She doesn’t think that Avery paid you £3700 every week, so she knows that you had to do it, but...

“And I could have forgiven it, you know,” Avery continues. “If she hadn’t also been a common thief. Did she tell you that she was arrested?” You didn’t. Robin shakes her head, in mute discomfort. “I’d expect as much,” Avery says. She sighs. “I like my weekends to be a reprieve from the stresses of work. Bailing a shoplifter out doesn’t sound like my idea of a relaxing date.”

“No,” Robin says. If you were having to steal… Robin could have done something. She would have tried, at least. She would have done almost anything you asked of her. She’ll do this, now, since you apparently couldn’t.

“I’ve moved on,” Avery says simply. “I think we both ought to.” She takes another sip of her soup then, the matter settled.

Robin tries to follow her lead. She finishes her glass of wine. The waitress reappears with the bottle. She finishes her salad. She doesn’t like fish any more now than she did this morning. She smiles and nods when Avery speaks.

She takes Avery’s hand as they walk out of the restaurant.

“Thank you for the pleasant evening, darling,” Avery says, once the car is in park outside the orphanage. Robin can’t help but notice that the doors are still locked.

“You’re welcome?” Robin says, unsure if that’s the correct formality for such an occasion. Avery just smiles, opening her purse and extracting several folded banknotes.

“I am,” she says, holding the notes between two fingers. Robin knows a trap when she sees them, and doesn’t reach out. Avery turns her face to Robin’s. “But first,” Avery murmurs, her voice a little husky, a hint of the wine on her breath.

Robin knows what to do. She leans in and kisses Avery.

Avery’s soup must have had fish in it, Robin realizes, as Avery’s tongue parts her lips. She tastes like that and the wine, sour and dry, and it’s a little gross and still better than Robin could have ever imagined.

Robin kisses back, a little, but mostly she lets Avery kiss her, tongue rolling along the inside of Robin's lip. The sensation makes Robin want to pull back and climb into Avery's lap all at once, ticklish in the strangest way.

It's overwhelming. It's the second time Robin's kissed Avery, and the second time she's kissed anyone. It's good that Avery doesn't mind that Robin doesn't know what she's doing, because she's so hopelessly lost.

Avery's hand finds its way around Robin's waist, and if that means that touching is an option—Robin tries to reach around Avery, but she can't really see without pulling away, and she freezes as her hand brushes Avery's breast.

Avery breaks the kiss, but not to chastise Robin, just to chuckle, and to brush toothy kisses along the line of Robin's jaw (which feels so much better than it sounds), and to settle Robin's hand much more firmly on her breast.

"Can I?" Robin asks, unable to resist at least a little squeeze. Avery's breasts feel nothing at all like hers, but they have to be at least four times the size, and she can almost feel Avery's nipple, stiff under the layers of her dress and the thick, soft fabric of her bra.

Avery's mouth is almost at Robin's ear when she answers, breath tickling. "I'd be offended if you didn't, darling," she says, and then she sucks Robin's earlobe into her mouth and Robin squeezes her legs together because it's so gross and she wants it to keep happening.

She tries, out of the spirit of the thing, to work her hand inside Avery's dress, but she can't quite make sense of the construction. Avery doesn't seem to mind, though, especially when Robin starts rolling what she thinks is Avery's nipple between her fingers.

Robin wants this. She's not even sure what they can do. It's not like she can bring Avery into the orphanage. All of her mental images are scaled wrong, Avery having to stoop to fit herself through the doors, even though Robin knows that she probably isn't all that tall, in comparison. But it's an embarrassing idea nonetheless, Avery lying on Robin's bed next to her homework-covered desk and her console and her stack of comics. Her imaginings end there, though, the incongruence of Avery in the orphanage too much for Robin to really think of anything she could do to her.

Fortunately, Avery answers that question for her.

“Have you ever eaten pussy before, darling?” Avery asks, pulling away, expression serious.

Robin, learning that she can flush more, does so. “N-no,” she says, aware that the stutter makes her look ridiculous, but unable to stop herself. It’s the truth. She shouldn’t be embarrassed. A broad, curling smile breaks out across Avery’s face. “I’m sorry,” she adds, hastily.

“Don’t be sorry,” Avery says, still smiling. “I’ll simply need to teach you.”

Oh. That’s nothing to be afraid of. Robin smiles back, a little nervous. “How do we…” she says, gesturing around at the car. She’s not quite sure of the right way to… lean down, she supposes.

Avery’s grin gets even wider. “Oh, that’s the fun part.”

The less said about the positioning, the better. Avery slides her seat all the way back, farther than Robin had thought it could go, opening up a place for Robin to climb down, and then she stops Robin, bending down herself to slip her driving shoes off, one foot at a time, and then she holds those out of the way while Robin works herself into a kneeling position, Avery’s legs spread wide around her, while Avery lays back on her reclined seat like it’s a bed. Avery has to flop one leg over the center console, and Robin’s a little nervous about how close she is to the pedals, but they eventually manage it.

Robin feels a little trapped, and she’s glad she’s not claustrophobic. It’s a good kind of trapped, though, like reading under the covers with a torch.

And then Avery opens her skirt. Robin had realized, sort of, that the construction was a wrap skirt, and that it could, then, theoretically be opened.

And she’d also known that, also theoretically, it would be.

But theoretical knowledge doesn’t prepare her for the incredible reality of being so, so close to Avery’s pussy.

Avery’s mound is smooth and hairless, as far as Robin can see, behind her thin, dusky mauve lace panties. It’s—not something Robin hasn’t seen before, technically, but it’s a new sight in-person. It looks like something from a magazine. Kind of unreal. It looks a little like yours, Robin thinks, in the photos and videos on Whitney’s phone.

“Wow,” Robin’s mouth says, even as she wishes it wouldn’t. That’s—that’s Avery’s pussy. Right in front of her.

Avery readjusts, bringing herself even closer to Robin, and Robin moves in. And she hesitates. She knows, from the things she’s read, the substance of what she’s supposed to do.

“What do you like?” Robin says, staring through the gaps in the lace, because she doesn’t want to get it wrong.

“You can play with me a little, through them,” Avery says, and Robin can smell the wetness of her through the lace, a little different than her own.

Robin leans in, rubbing against Avery’s sex like a friendly cat against her hand. “Play?” she asks, mouth on Avery’s inner thigh.

“Kiss my clit, darling,” Avery says, and so Robin does. It’s a little bit of guesswork, Avery’s clit being more buried than Robin’s own, but she gets it right enough through the panties that Avery makes a happy little noise. “And use your tongue.”

It’s a nice texture, wet lace and the softness of Avery’s pussy beneath it. “Is this good?” Robin asks, licking up one of Avery’s outer lips, before sucking gently on it, wetting the fabric with her mouth.

“It’s good,” Avery says. She leans back further into her seat. “Show me you want me.”

So Robin does. She stops worrying about what Avery likes, just… kissing and sucking all over. There’s a spot on Avery’s inner thigh, under a tendon, where she sucks the skin into her mouth, and Avery makes a very pleased noise when she does that.

And it’s nice, to be close to someone who wants her. You’ve always—the thing between you and Robin has always been this fucking boulder, dropped in the middle of the street, and Robin can’t even complain because she’s the one who dropped it—been so obviously aware of Robin’s feelings, and Robin’s always been aware that you don’t return them.

Robin used to crawl into your bed, some nights when she couldn’t sleep, and you’d wrap around her and breathe on top of her and lull her to sleep. She doesn’t think she could get away with that now.

It had been wrong to confess—not a moral failing, just a lack of judgment—and even more wrong to do it so soon after you took her back from the docks. Only, you'd looked when she'd taken her panties off in the hospital, and you'd slept in her bed the night after, when she was too afraid of Bailey to sleep alone. So Robin had slipped the note under your door. When you'd come to her room the next day and given her a new console instead of a kiss, she had wanted to lock herself in and never leave again. She didn't want your money. She hates needing it.

She doesn't want to think like this. She focuses, instead, on Avery's pussy, on the way the fabric is wet though, on the change in the taste and scent.

“Take my panties off,” Avery says, and she helps, too, lifting herself up so that Robin can work them down her legs. It’s a little funny, passing them back up and watching Avery set them on the passenger seat, next to her shoes.

Avery slides back down, skirt rucked up around her waist, and without her panties in the way it's obvious that she's wet. Robin did that. She made Avery wet.

She doesn't need to be told to put her mouth back on Avery's pussy, and it's so much more, the taste and the wetness and the way that Avery's labia seem to slither out of the path of her tongue, too slippery for anything at all like friction.

Avery sighs happily, relaxing down into her seat, and Robin sucks open mouthed on Avery's folds. That gets a good reaction, so Robin keeps going, licking and sucking all over.

She thinks Avery likes it, but it's difficult to tell. This isn't anything Robin has done before,

“Is this good?” Robin asks, pulling back. "I—am I doing it right?"

Avery smiles down at her, hand petting her hair, like she really is a cat. “Worried I'm not happy with you?” she asks.

“Uh,” Robin says. She doesn't want to confess to the feeling, since it might suggest that she has a reason to do it. “I just… do you want more?”

Avery hums. “Use your fingers,” she says. “Two. You’ve gotten me so wet, it’s going to be easy.”

And Avery is wet, a little sour against Robin’s tongue, an unfamiliar flavor for all that it’s a known one. Robin has to pull back, to get her hand into place, but she figures it out pretty easily. It helps that Avery’s making all of those little affirming noises.

Robin doesn't do this to herself, usually, and when she's tried it's been disappointing, a weird pressure and a poking sensation that lands firmly in the realm of the medical. She's done it anyway, looking at her graded science homework, a labeled diagram covered in Sirris's bright green smiley faces, and she can tell she can find the right area, the rougher spot on the front wall of her vagina, but all that happens when she rubs at it is that she kind of wants to pee.

Avery rocks her hips into Robin's mouth, and her hand stops petting Robin's hair and grabs onto it hard, and her thighs tighten around Robin's head in a sudden press of muscle that muffles all of the sounds in the car.

"Fuck!" Avery says, tense and harsh, and Robin would worry, except for the fact that Avery isn't pushing her away or anything, so she must be doing it right. "Right there, oh, yes."

Robin licks faster at Avery's clit, and Avery moans again, and tightens her grip on Robin's hair. Robin's whole body jerks, trying to pull away from it and get closer at the same time.

“Oh, you like it when I’m a little rough,” Avery says, tugging harder at Robin’s hair. “Very cute.”

Robin can’t help but moan into her, body brought electric by the twinges of pain in her scalp. “Mmm-hmm,” she hums, and that gets a buck of Avery’s hips, which means she does it again. It’s almost like a game, a way to guess what’s going to get Avery to feel good, to take more, to come. She thinks she might be able to do it, actually, if the noises Avery is making are any indication.

“Do you want to know what I’m doing?” Avery asks, pushing Robin’s head a little further down, so that Robin’s being encouraged to lick inside her.

Robin hums her agreement, too engrossed in the flavor of Avery on her tongue.

Avery makes a pleased little sound. "I'm touching my nipples," she says, and then she pushes Robin's head back down, when Robin—not intentionally—tries to look up and see. She wasn't planning to stop eating Avery out, she just wanted to look at Avery's breasts outside of the dress.

Robin keeps fingering after, licking at her clit and moving her hand faster. Avery's pussy is so warm and wet, clenching around Robin's fingers as she fucks them into her. She adds a third finger, unprompted but guessing that it's the correct choice, and Avery tugs at her hair in reward.

“I can’t believe you’ve never done this before,” Avery says, in a cadence quicker than her usual speech. “You little—ah!—virtuoso, you eat pussy like you were born for it. Yes, right there, fuck!” Robin sucks Avery’s labia into her mouth again, harder, sliding her mouth up to Avery’s clit, and the sort of full-body shudder she gets from Avery is fucking intoxicating. She does it again, and fuck, Avery's pussy is so wet, and with the sweat from her thighs and Robin's face, Robin's hair is getting wet. Anyone who sees her will know.

You'd know, if you saw her. Robin is sure that you did this for Avery, just as often as Avery wanted you to, and that you did it well. Robin can admit it, to herself, that she isn't only trying to make up for the lost income. It's a way to be close to you, even though you don't want her to be. She feels guilty. It doesn't stop her from imagining you in Avery's place.

Avery doesn't seem to notice, really, grinding into it, thighs holding on to Robin, keeping her face pinned. She's strong, and the pressure around Robin is almost overwhelming.

“The quicker you make me come, the sooner I’ll let you up to breathe,” Avery gasps, every inch of her hips and thighs tense where Robin’s face is buried between them.

Robin doesn’t care as much as she knows she should. She needs to take a full breath at some point, but she’ll manage happily.

Avery is groaning now, and moving, and clutching hard onto Robin's hair.

“Suck me,” she says, rushed and urgent. “Suck me, hard, fuck!”

Robin finds Avery’s clit again, sealing her lips around it and sucking it into her mouth, tongue flickering on it as fast as she can make it. She hopes she’s doing it right. She hopes she’s getting Avery off, right, the way she’s asking for.

She hopes she’s being good.

Avery goes very, very still, and comes, thighs shaking where they’re wrapped around Robin’s head, and her pussy twitching against Robin’s mouth, and Robin thinks: I want to be right here for the rest of my life.

She doesn’t let Robin up quickly, but that’s not what Robin really wanted, anyway. It’s nice to feel the aftershocks up-close, laying against Avery’s pussy with her eyes closed and her face wet. The smell of sex is strong here, all soaked, filling Robin's mind.

She was good. She got Avery off. She can do it, even if you don't think she's capable of anything like this. She'll be able to prove you wrong, one day.

Avery relaxes, slowly, and lets go of Robin's hair, and Robin misses it.

“Do you want to come, honey?” Avery asks, looking down at where Robin is stuck between her legs. Robin… doesn’t know. She’s—she can feel her clit, a throbbing point of sensation that’s almost painful.

She presses her face against Avery’s leg instead. “I don’t know,” she admits. “It always takes me so long.” So long and too much, fantasies she hates to think of in the light of day.

Avery sighs, but it’s not an unhappy one. “That’s because you didn’t have me,” she says, guiding Robin’s head away from her leg. “Come up here, sit on my lap.”

She sets Robin up straddling her thighs, and Robin can feel the shifting of muscle under skin. “What—what should I do?” Robin asks.

Avery smiles. “What do you do when you masturbate, honey?” she asks, and Robin—Robin had her whole face in this woman’s pussy, and she’s still never blushed this hard in her whole life.

“I,” she begins, trying not to think of the time you’d walked in on her. “I—with my pillow?” She begins to make a gesture, only that’s so much worse and more embarrassing.

Avery laughs. Not like she’s trying to be mean. “Oh, that’s all you need to say,” she says, lifting Robin up like she’s a doll. “Over my thigh, like this.” She readjusts her position, getting Robin settled. Robin has a brief, fleeting thought of taking off her underwear, but then she’s making contact and she’s glad for the barrier.

Avery’s thighs are beautiful, through her clothes and beneath them, and they’re also built well, strong and thick, and Robin’s clit is pinned beneath her weight, and she’s just sitting on Avery’s lap. “Oh, wow,” she says, hips starting to work without her input. “Oh, oh.”

“I thought you’d like it,” Avery says, hands settling on Robin’s hips, just enough to hold her down. “You know, I remember when I first figured out the bathtub faucet.” She sighs with nostalgia, but her face is doing something tinged with irritation. “I was constantly in trouble for taking hour-long baths.”

Robin thinks about that, the unconscious luxury of enough hot water to take a bath for an hour. She thinks about that, the relaxation and the security, and she buries her head in Avery’s neck, where that other smell of her is strongest. The warm, floral and spicy and burnt one, like the mulled wine she’d bought Robin. It’s mixed with sweat, a bit, the clean hair type, no nerves or exhaustion. It’s a nice smell. Robin humps Avery’s thigh, and sniffs her hair, and just collapses onto her, tired and small and safe.

“You do like this, don’t you, honey?” Avery asks, and Robin can feel her voice against her. Avery’s pushing her down, pulling her closer, and it’s shocking how secure she feels, in this car on this street, rubbing her clothed cunt against Avery’s bare thigh.

“I do,” Robin promises, feeling the pressure start to build within her core, her body’s familiar signal that it’s willing to cooperate, to let her come. She might not need the fantasy, when she’s got Avery, doesn’t need the things she imagines in the dark of the night, the peril and the fear.

It's that, a bit, and the fact that this is the kind of thing she might have imagined for herself. Avery is bossy, and she has a clear mean streak, and she looks so good, with her beautiful hair and her beautiful dress and her manicured fingernails. And Robin needs the money, so she has to, she has no other choice but to give Avery what she wants, and Avery probably locked her in here, could keep her here, could take Robin anywhere she wanted, and do anything—

When Robin comes, it's a surprise, with her hips pushing her clit into Avery's thigh and her mouth pressed open and drooling into Avery's neck. She doesn't do this. It always takes too long.

Maybe she did need this. Maybe it wasn't so one-sided after all.

Avery smiles, when Robin pulls back, and kisses her, just to prove that she can. "Not long at all," she proclaims, and she helps Robin climb back into the passenger seat.

Robin smiles back. She's buzzing all over, from the orgasm and the shock, her body finally cooperating with her. "Thank you," she says, and she tugs at her dress. It's ridden up, and her legs are exposed, and there's a huge fold of fabric all around her stomach.

“This is a lovely dress,” Avery says, as Robin is trying to adjust it to sit correctly around her hips. “Return it.”

Robin looks up at her, confused. “It isn’t formal enough?” she asks. She’d thought it wasn’t too terribly out of place in the restaurant.

“You look incredibly uncomfortable in it,” Avery says. She tugs at the fabric. “If you aren’t going to learn how to pretend to enjoy dressing like this, don’t.” She pauses. “Those trousers you were wearing earlier this week. You looked quite charming in them. Where did you get them?”

Robin blushes. “The basement,” she says. The baskets of abandoned and lost clothes. She had needed something warmer than her school skirt, and the baskets had provided. She had needed to hem them, of course, a hand-span of fabric folded up inside the leg so it could be let out again when the next person needed them. “No one else needed them, and they’re nice.”

“How resourceful,” Avery says, an audible note of distaste in her voice. She tugs another few bills out of her purse. “Let’s not be resourceful in the future, shall we?”

Robin accepts the folded bills. She wants to curl up into a little ball and never relax again. She's glad she didn't give into impulse and wear the vampire costume you bought her for Halloween. "I'm sorry," she says, knowing what a bad idea it is to show weakness and nonetheless unable to resist.

"Don't be, darling," Avery says, checking her makeup in the mirror. "And if you must, I can think of more productive uses for your sorrow. I'm attending a party next Saturday evening. I'd like it if you would accompany me."

Robin thinks she would also like that. "I'd really like to," she says. She'll think of something to tell you, some excuse for why she's spent money on a suit—she does hope Avery means for her to wear a suit—and she'll hope you don't ask where the money is coming from. She can think of lies. She can bring herself to lie to you, the way you used to lie to her.

"Good," Avery says. She adjusts the mirror back to its standard position. "I must say, it's a breath of fresh air to share an evening with someone with a sense of decorum."

Well, Robin already knew you didn't have any of that. "Thank you," she says. She's gotten her dress back down enough to be decent, and she's given up on saving her hair. "I should probably go home, so I can get to bed. I'm helping with the party tomorrow."

"Of course you are," Avery says, The locks on the doors click open "How generous." She reaches for the loafers in the glove compartment, rather than her heels.

"See you on Saturday," Robin says, opening her door. The air is freezing, and she thinks that snow might be starting to fall. It's festive, at least, even if she's not quite as enthusiastic about how well work will go tomorrow.

Avery stops her. “Before you go,” she says, a pleased smile on her face, and leans in for one last kiss. Robin lets her, even though her face is still all sticky, and she's certain that Avery can taste her own pussy on Robin's lips.

The orphanage is the same as it ever is, even the night before Christmas. Robin can see the lights on in the adult wing, just desk lamps, since Bailey says they waste less money than the ceiling lights; and she can hear the creaky second floorboard in the entryway; and someone is filling a glass of water in the kitchen down the hall; and somewhere, someone is crying. There's decorations up in the main hall and the lounge, donated and scrounged and stolen, and there's a pile of presents under the tree.

Robin hopes you like yours. She climbs the stairs on tired feet, cold and sore and unexpectedly loose-limbed. She did it. She had sex, and she got paid for it, and she didn't freak out. It was good. Avery was nice to her.

The rule about the lights doesn't apply to the bathroom, at least, and the cracked, dingy tile is washed in a humming underwater glow as Robin pees and washes her hands.

Robin looks in the mirror. She expects, in the back of her mind, to see a new face pasted on over hers.

It’s nothing like that at all. Same round jaw, same uneven eyebrows, the bun she’d put her hair into disheveled but still present, and the same eyes behind it. There’s a smear of Avery’s lipstick on her mouth, and a strand of Avery's hair stuck to her cheek, and the whole bottom half of her face is a little wet and tacky, but it’s her face.

She thinks about coming on Avery’s lap. She thinks about how you’d given that up for Whitney.

Robin had begun to think she understood you. She’s not so sure that she does anymore.

The hallway is dark and silent, after she wipes her face off and pulls her hair out of the bun. She’ll deal with the rest in the morning. She’s just not ready to do it tonight.

Downstairs, the front door opens and shuts, and Robin hates that she can tell that it's you doing the opening and shutting, just from the way you stomp the snow off your boots, heedless of the noise. She pays so much attention to you, for someone who feels like she's growing so distant. At least you have Avery in common, now.

When Robin climbs into her bed, pajamas on and hair brushed out, she dreams of Avery's car flying down the road outside town, only there's no traffic or tight corners, just an easy, beautiful drive, and when she rests her hand on the gearshift and looks over into the driver's seat, you're there to wink at her.

It's a nice dream.