Archive of Our Own

Earlier this afternoon, when she’d daydreamed through a client meeting about the date she was to be taken on by her girlfriend, this was not what she had in mind.

Her head is pounding, and she’s freezing, and her girlfriend is regrettably meters away from her, being interviewed by a police officer.

Above her, the sun is hours gone and the sky over Manchester is a gradient of mauve and ink, light pollution giving it a glow she can’t help but think is actually quite pleasant, despite everything.

What is not pleasant is the way what was once a heady buzz has now morphed into a dull, constant headache, and the way she is not tucked warm into her girlfriend’s side, but rather, is alone and cold outside a pub she’s now hoping she’ll never have to set foot in again.

In the dim night, the blue light from the pair of cop cars that responded to the incident is illuminative; from where Carla’s standing, she can see the way it flickers over the side of Lisa’s face, and how with each flash, it highlights the blood that is stippled like queen anne’s lace across her chin.

It splattered there almost an hour ago, wet and crimson, when Lisa's cheekbone and jaw collided with the solid wood of the bar, her bottom lip splitting open with an audible, sopping tear.

She leans back against the bricks and scuffs her toe against the sidewalk. She feels a bit dazed, and not in a way that is at all enjoyable.

Inexplicably, she finds herself wishing she had a cigarette. Not that she’s ever smoked, really, but she needs something to calm her nerves, and the idea of drinking another glass of wine is enough to turn her stomach.

So much for their romantic night out in the city.

They should’ve just gone to the Bistro, she thinks. Should’ve stayed in Weatherfield where things were familiar, where the drunk patrons were known to them. Where they could be sure they wouldn’t be harassed.

Or perhaps, if they were so set on venturing out, they should’ve just gone to Canal Street, where they wouldn’t have stuck out as much.

If she were to allow herself, the what-if’s could become endless, and she knows it.

It’s not productive.

Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve.

A few yards away to her left, the drunk patron in question is still quarreling with an officer in uniform.

He is annoyingly unscathed by the whole ordeal—not a scratch on his body— but she knows without seeing that even so, his face will be red and splotchy as he protests in the officer’s face. His forehead will be shiny with his sweat, his sputtering lips sour and wet.

She knows because she saw it all up close not thirty minutes ago as he’d sneered in a similar manner in the face of her girlfriend.

A fresh bout of hatred ripples through her at the memory—

She should’ve just walked away the moment he’d started speaking to her. If she hadn’t engaged with him, Lisa wouldn’t have stepped in. If she’d not let his words bother her, Lisa wouldn’t be standing next to a cop car with a split lip and a bruise blooming on her jawline.

It’s all so fucking stupid. She’s fifty-fucking-one years old. She shouldn’t be allowing some thirty-something prick with a complex about his masculinity to get under her skin.

“You’re wasted on that bird,” he’d quipped at her, unprompted, as she’d waited for the bartender to pour for her two more glasses of the Malbec.

She’d whipped around to look at him, and there he’d been, leering at her from two barstools away.

“You what?” She's not proud of how rattled she’d been, how jarred at the notion that they’d been noticed, despite minding their own business, despite having tucked themselves away in the farthest, quietest corner of the pub.

“I ain’t stupid,” he'd said, edging closer. “Saw the way she was looking at you. Touching you. Youse two are shagging, I know it.” He’d sounded above all else profoundly wasted.

And she’d opened and closed her mouth, torn suddenly between puffing her chest in protest— so what if we are, she might say— and lying to protect herself.

(Though she wasn’t so sure trying to fool him was a viable option, anyway.)

But she’d not had time to make a decision, as it turned out, because he’d already been continuing, close enough to her now that she could smell the sourness of beer on his breath.

“Y’know—“ He’d reached a clammy hand out in her direction, and she’d inched back as if burned, keeping her forearm just out of his reach. “A real man could show you how it’s done.”

A real man? she’d thought. Was this to suggest Lisa was posturing as some kind of fake man?

He’d lowered his voice further, as if to impart a secret only for them to hear. “A real man would know how to hit it right. Pretty girl like you.”

Her stomach had curdled at that.

He’d looked her up and down, and she’d hated the way it had made her feel naked, like he’d stripped her of her clothes and was appraising her body for the taking.

And as her insides roiled, her brain had grabbed hold of her fear and twisted it resolutely into anger— an emotion that was safer, spikier, and infinitely more manageable.

“‘Scuse me, I’ll have you know—“

If only she’d known Lisa had been there before she’d starting talking back. If only she’d turned around to see her sweet, loved-up girlfriend had chosen that moment of all moments to join her obliviously at the bar.

But she had not, and instead she’d opened her big gob and sunk to his level.

For what it had been— just another arsehole making nasty comments better left ignored— she can see now that the escalation to physical violence had been entirely unnecessary.

(But it often is, she thinks, when there is alcohol involved. Not to mention casual homophobia.)

What had started as a bit of hubris on Lisa’s part— the usual run-of-the-mill threats of cuffing and arrest— had quickly turned into an actual physical altercation— one in which Lisa’s attempts at restraint and de-escalation had been quickly turned back around on her.

She’d never stood a chance, had she. She was half her opponent’s size and was three glasses deep, and Carla swore the arsehole in question had to have had military training— or at least something of the like— what with the way he’d spun Lisa right around and slammed her down against the bar, her face colliding with the solid wood and her arms pinned helplessly behind her back.

A feeling that had begun in Carla’s stomach as mild embarrassment— what for the way her girlfriend had been growling at her defense like a tiny attack dog— had quickly ballooned into fear, and then complete unbridled fury, as she’d watched blood burst forth onto finished oak.

“Oi, get the fuck off her!” Her overwhelm had pounded in her ears and she’d lunged forward, her blood pressure spiking in a way that made her limbs feel jumpy and quick.

But her attempts had been futile. The mob had already descended; three burly men were doing the job for her, swooping in to pull the man away.

When she’d hauled Lisa up from the bar she’d been bent over, her thumb wiping frantically at the fleshy wound on Lisa’s lip, blood had smeared across her palm. She’d stared at her dazed, pummeled girlfriend, and a cacophony of scuffling and yelling had clogged up her ears—

Someone call the cops—

The fuck is wrong with you, mate, you don’t hit a woman—

She’d felt horribly small.

Helpless and naked.

She sighs and looks down at her hands, one of which is still covered in Lisa’s dried blood. It looks strange in the fluorescent light coming from the lit pub sign above her, and she feels unsteady, caught between rattled and humiliated and entirely furious at the absolute gall of the man now being loaded into the back a cop car before her eyes.

....

Her nerves have at least somewhat calmed by the time they’re allowed to go home.

They’ve both given statements to the police, and Lisa’s refused medical attention three times over.

Her face looks a mess, but she insists sharply that she’s just fine every time Carla makes to inquire whether she’s in pain, whether she thinks it might be a good idea to take a trip to the A&E.

Ultimately, Carla gives up and calls their uber home to no. 6, rather than to the hospital, where she thinks it really might be best that they go.

Lisa leans against her side, exhausted, as they stare down together at her phone, watching a tiny simulation of their car approaching.

When it finally arrives, they clamber together into the back seat, and Lisa slides over into the middle, where she cuddles up against Carla, resting the uninjured half of her face on Carla’s shoulder.

In light of the evening’s events, Carla feels a self-consciousness at the open display of affection that is unlike her. The onslaught of nerves makes her feel off-kilter; she’s never been one to care, has never shied away from kisses in public or hands held on the sidewalk. But tonight, she’s met with sudden visions of their uber driver looking at them through the rearview mirror, saying something like— you’re too pretty to be a dyke— or worse, saying nothing at all, and instead driving them somewhere off route, somewhere dark and isolated where he might be able to harm them somehow, unnoticed.

She imagines a version of their evening that ends with them in a dim, empty car park, the stranger in the driver’s seat perhaps trying to force himself on her, breathing something disgusting in her ear about how real men hit it right.

Worse, she imagines Lisa snarling at him in her defense, perhaps trying to stop him, earning another blow to the face in retaliation.

Against her better judgement, she falls deeper into her spiral. Manchester flies by outside the car’s window and she questions what she’d actually do in such a situation.

If she thought she had no chance of escape, maybe she’d just let him have her, she thinks. Maybe she’d just let him do as he pleased with her if it meant he’d spare Lisa the harm.

She thinks of how Lisa would kick and scream and fight. Maybe, she thinks, with a terrible nausea that tears through her insides, Lisa would even offer herself up, beg him to spare her the harm, instead.

The thought is horrid, and twisted, and holding it inside her skull physically hurts.

She closes her eyes and shakes her head minutely, trying to clear the awful vision.

She’s catastrophizing, and she knows it. Letting her anxious, irrational thoughts run away from her, all because she’s let that stupid, disgusting drunk get under her skin.

She knows she should be used to it by now— the constant low hum of homophobia existing always beneath the subcutaneous of daily life— but she’s not. She’s new to this still— a year of queerness is nothing compared the lifetime Lisa’s endured— and she’s still rattled each time such senseless ignorance surfaces and pokes out its ugly little head.

Lisa’s cheek is still heavy on her shoulder, and she feels uber-aware of every place their bodies touch.

She takes a breath and actively fights past the nerves that sit high in her chest. Her instinct is to hide, to shrug away from Lisa, pretend there’s nothing romantic between them for the sake of their safety, but she knows it would only make her a coward to do so.

Instead, she acts in opposition and slips her hand over Lisa’s knee, giving it a light squeeze, and tilts her head to the side to rest it against the crown of Lisa’s.

Her little protector, she thinks.

Warmth fills her to rise past her fear.

Her sweet lover. Her scrappy attack dog.

“Love you, darling,” she whispers against Lisa’s hair, and gives her knee another squeeze.

....

The house is dark and quiet when they arrive home. It’s a Friday night, after all, which means Betsy will be who knows where. As will Ryan.

She trails Lisa up the stairs, reaching a hand out to touch her lower back, urging her gently up.

“Will you let me clean you up?” she asks, when they’ve reached the landing.

Lisa turns back toward her and nods. She looks exhausted as she is bruised.

In the bedroom, Carla watches her shrug stiffly out of her coat, which she discards on the bed, and then she follows her into the bathroom.

At her insistence, Lisa perches on the closed toilet seat, and Carla crouches before her, squinting at her injuries, re-assessing them anew in the bathroom’s harsh light.

“Oh, baby…” she sighs. She holds Lisa’s chin gingerly between her thumb and forefinger, tilting it to look more closely at the deep, fat cut on her lip, the entirety of which is shiny and engorged, and the bruise that’s beginning to darken on her jawline. “He really got you.”

Lisa grimaces, but says nothing.

“Prick,” Carla mutters, tilting Lisa’s chin the other way, peering angrily at the red mark on her cheekbone. “I could kill him.”

Lisa shakes her head slightly. “I could kill him.” Her eyes are downcast. “Those disgusting things he was saying to you. Made me so angry.”

Carla dampens a cloth in the sink and then crouches back before Lisa, dabbing carefully at the blood that’s dried on her cheek, splattered from the wound on her lip.

“You can’t be doing that, Lise. Jumping to my defense like that. You’ll get yourself seriously hurt one of these days.”

Lisa raises an eyebrow at this, then looks down and away with something akin to guilt.

Carla hums in silent agreement. “Right. S’pose you already did.”

She presses the cool cloth against Lisa’s lip, which has mercifully stopped bleeding.

Lisa hisses at the pressure.

Carla bites her own lip, sympathetic, and holds back any further scolding. She knows Lisa’s tired and sore, and more importantly, that such scolding would be futile. The part of Lisa that lunges out perpetually in her defense is something innate; no amount of lecturing will ever stop her.

It’s something about Lisa that she loves as much as she hates.

The part of her that can’t stand to see Lisa in pain like this detests that Lisa keeps doing this to herself.

But another part of her— the part that grew up reading fairytales about princesses saved from towers by princes and knights— sort of loves Lisa’s undying chivalry.

She’d hated it with Peter— when he’d jumped to her defense, it had made her feel petulant and obdurate, determined to prove she could hold her own, that she didn’t need her prideful boyfriend holding his fists up in the face of whoever dared to threaten her— but with Lisa, she can’t help but feel woefully endeared by it all. It feels like an act of unbounded romance, of devotion. A specifically queer reclaiming of masculine valiance, forged through nothing but Lisa’s sheer stubborn will.

Oh, her tiny, grouchy detective. Soft for her, yet misbehaved and snappy for everyone else. Her performance of toughness, her willingness to square up against any man who dare try to oppress her.

It makes her imagine a version of Lisa who was once young and small, a deeply closeted tomboy with scraped knees, standing up to the meanest boys on the playground, weathering slurs and barriers and everything else that surely came along with being different.

The thought makes her stomach physically hurt with how huge and deep her affection is, and she finds herself wishing she could scoop Lisa up, wrap her in her arms, cradle her there and reassure her in soft tones of just how big, and strong, and intimidating she is.

“Are you alright?” Lisa is asking her.

The sound drags her back to the present. In front of her, Lisa’s tired eyes are scanning her face.

Carla blinks. “Am I alright? I should be asking you that.”

“No, I mean. He must’ve scared you— threatening you like that, suggesting he was gonna, what—“ she sputters a little,”—what, force himself on you?”

“Lise.“ Carla waves a dismissive hand at her.

She can’t hear it be said in such plain terms. It’s too much to take.

“He wasn’t gonna actually do anything. He was just mouthing off.”

Lisa shakes her head and looks back at her lap. “It’s still disturbing.”

Carla’s not sure what to say to that, so instead of responding she rises and brings the cloth to the sink, where she rinses it out.

The water she squeezes from it runs red. She watches it swirl, and then disappear down the drain.

“I hate that men feel entitled to you,” Lisa says quietly from behind her. “Just because you’re feminine, and pretty.”

Carla hangs the damp cloth over the faucet and turns back to Lisa, sitting down across from her on the edge of the bathtub.

She lets out a contemplative breath. “Well I appreciate you saying I'm pretty, but I’m used to it, Lise, really.”

It’s sort of the truth, and also sort of a lie.

She’s used to it in the sense that men have always been forward about their attraction to her. She’s used to cat-calls and come-on’s.

What she’s not used to is the bizarre streak of entitlement that has entered the mix since she’s started dating a woman. The way men are offended by the notion that a woman as pretty as her might choose to fuck another woman rather than them— a man with a penis. The way, in their triggered state, they spew things at are insidious, things that— though disguised as pick-up lines they can easily claim to be harmless— border on threatening.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Lisa says quietly. “It’s okay if it upset you.” She reaches out a hand into the space between them, palm up.

Carla takes it, threading their fingers together, and their clasped hands hang between their knees.

“I’m okay,” Carla says. “Was worse seeing him hurt you than it was hearing him say those things, if I’m honest.”

She tries to meet Lisa’s eyes, but they flick away, down to their clasped hands, a bit sheepish.

“I just can’t stand to listen to it,” Lisa says. Frustration has re-entered her voice. “It makes me insane. Can’t control myself.”

Carla nudges her chin back up. “You’ve got to, though. Look what he did to you.”

Lisa shakes her head silently.

Carla sighs. There’s no where else for the conversation to go, and she knows it. They won’t put the world to rights arguing about it.

“Do you at least want a paracetamol or summat?” she asks. “You’ve gotta be sore.”

Lisa touches her lip gingerly and winces, then nods. “Just gonna change first.” She looks down at herself, indicating, and Carla notices for the first time that there’s blood on the collar of her shirt, as well.

She sighs and stands, then offers a hand to help Lisa up, as well.

....

Downstairs, Carla fishes around in the kitchen cabinet for the bottle of paracetamol, from which she retrieves two pills. She rattles them absently in the bowl of her palm as she fills a glass with water, and then she makes her way to the living room, where she sets them on the coffee table and sinks into the couch. Somehow, the reprieve of sitting makes her even more aware of how bone-deep the ache in her joints is.

She’s just allowed herself to doze off when she finally hears Lisa padding down the stairs behind her.

She rouses.

“Got your drugs,” she calls quietly. “As requested.”

She turns back to look at Lisa.

She’s changed into pajamas and taken her hair down, and if wasn’t for the part of her that is mangled and bruised, she’d look incredibly soft. Her downy baby hairs are illuminated by lamp light, and her braless chest looks supple and curved beneath the satin of her pajama top.

She manages a smile with the half of her mouth that’s not swollen. “Thank you, darling,” she exhales.

“C’mere.” Carla reaches an arm out to beckon her in.

Lisa rounds the couch, then sinks down onto the carpet at Carla’s feet.

Carla ripples at her obedience. “There,” she says, pointing to the pills on the coffee table.

Lisa tosses them back and swallows them with water before turning to face her. She tucks her feet beneath herself and inches closer.

Then she reaches for the hem of Carla’s dress— black floral and floor length, one Carla had picked out obliviously hours ago, imagining herself happy and drunk and feminine on Lisa’s arm— and lifts it up, bunching it above Carla’s knees so she can scoot her body in between Carla’s shins.

“Let me in,” she murmurs, her voice taking on a needy tone. She tilts her head forward and rests her uninjured cheek on one of Carla’s thighs. “Touch my hair.”

Carla hums as affection flutters in her belly, and obliges, sinking her fingers in against Lisa’s scalp.

“Hm, like this?” She draws her nails in a long line from Lisa’s hairline to the back of her head.

Lisa nods, visibly shivering against the sensation, and exhales into Carla’s lap. Her shoulders sag with an express of tension.

“Sweetheart,” Carla breathes.

Something about Lisa at her feet like this, offering herself up to be loved, has put an ache low inside her— fondness and something in the realm of arousal sitting there, solid and heavy.

Lisa snuggles closer. One of her hands is curled slack in her lap, and the other has found its way to Carla’s knee, where it slides up beneath the bunched hem of her dress. Her eyes have fallen closed, and her expression is slack and peaceful, despite her injuries. If she were a cat, Carla’s sure she’d be purring.

“Feel good?” Carla asks quietly. She presses her fingers against the thin muscle on the back of Lisa's head.

Lisa nods, nuzzling the thigh her head rests on, her hand sliding higher on the other. She turns her face and presses her lips gently against Carla’s clothed leg.

“Baby,” Carla coos. Affection rises and recedes inside her, lapping like an ocean wave against the base of her throat.

Lisa lifts her cheek and pushes Carla’s skirt higher still, so that when she rests her face back down, it presses to Carla’s bare skin.

She kisses Carla there again, but this time she opens her mouth wetly and drags it, sloppy and suggestive, across the exposed flesh.

“Careful,” Carla warns. She nudges the knuckle of her index finger beneath Lisa’s chin. “Your lip, darling.”

“S’fine,” Lisa slurs. She looks up from beneath her lashes and her tongue slips out for Carla to see, darting over her fat lower lip.

The sight is like a drug, shooting through Carla’s veins and landing between her legs, where it begins an incessant thump. She runs her fingers again through Lisa’s hairline, watches Lisa’s eyes roll in pleasure, hears the whine that’s buried in her throat.

Lisa tips her face forward and kisses her again and again, just as sloppy. “I’ll never let anyone touch you,” she murmurs, her visibly tender lips bumping the muscle of Carla’s thigh. “ll’always protect you.”

“I know, honey,” Carla soothes.

Lisa moans quietly at the affirmation and smears her uninjured cheek over the trail of her own saliva she’s left behind.

She’s performing a bit now, Carla thinks. It’s a bit of a charade, a demonstration of her devotion. And it’s going to get them both off— Lisa at her feet like a loyal puppy, her eyelids fluttering with every pass of Carla’s hand through her hair, every piece of gentle praise, every declaration of how obedient and good she is.

“Is this okay?” Lisa asks. Her hand is creeping higher on Carla’s thigh. Her forearm is fully buried beneath the fabric of Carla’s skirt, and her fingertips are nearing the lace where Carla’s leg meets her hip.

Carla smiles. “Darling.” She brushes back Lisa’s fringe.

“Please?” Lisa whispers. “Wanna make you feel good.”

She paints her mouth once more over Carla’s thigh, as if in demonstration, and pushes at Carla’s skirt, bunching it up higher above her hips to reveal a sliver of her stomach.

Carla hums, scooting her pelvis forward.

“You’ll hurt yourself,” she murmurs, but it’s hardly a protest when every movement of her body is in opposition to her words; she lifts her hips in invitation, inches her centre closer to Lisa’s mouth, which hangs open for her, slack and wanting.

“Don’t care,” she hears Lisa say, and she feels the press of Lisa’s nose against her pubic bone, then the subtle vibration when Lisa audibly inhales, desperate and wanton. “Wanna make you feel good,” she pleads again.

Carla chews her bottom lip for a moment, hips twitching, and then she surrenders.

“Show me,” she purrs.

She cups the back of Lisa’s head and drags her in.

Her stomach plummets at the sensation of Lisa’s mouth against her, warm and damp through the fabric of her underwear. She feels Lisa’s tongue press solid against the swollen mound of her clit, and suddenly she’s pleasantly motion sick. High and woozy.

She aches.

“Look at me,” she breathes.

Lisa obeys; blown pupils find her from beneath heavy lids. In the lamplight, the fresh bruise on Lisa's cheek looks deep and pronounced.

Carla’s heart pounds in her throat. Rational thought escapes her and autopilot takes over.

She traces a finger over the mark, featherlight. “You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?” she whispers.

Lisa nods against her. “Anything.” The word is muffled.

“My good girl,” Carla whispers.

Lisa nods again. Her eyes have taken on a desperate glint.

“Touch me,” Carla instructs, quiet and gentle.

Lisa kneads the flesh of her thigh eagerly, grips and takes.

“—yes,” Carla hisses. She lifts her hips slightly, head buzzing. “Take them off."

Lisa obeys immediately, hooks her fingers into the waistband of Carla’s underwear and drags them down off Carla's ankles.

Then she raises her fingers to her mouth, her sore lips latching around them diligently, tongue swirling to wet them.

Despite her eagerness, her wince is poorly masked. Her eyes water as she sucks.

“Oh, baby.” Carla reaches down to pet her again. “Shh, stop.” She captures Lisa’s wrist gently and pulls her fingers from her lips. “Let me.”

She leans forward and brings Lisa’s hand to her own mouth instead.

When her tongue meets Lisa’s fingers, Lisa whimpers, and she tastes the slight tang of Lisa’s blood, left there by the cut on her lip.

Lisa, for her part, looks dazed, like she’s seen something divine.

Carla pulls her fingers from her mouth. “You’re okay?” she confirms.

When Lisa nods, it’s all she needs, and she tilts her pelvis forward to guide Lisa’s saliva-wet hand between her legs.

“Fuck me.” She presses Lisa’s fingers against her opening.

Lisa audibly groans at the feeling. She rests her cheek back down on Carla’s thigh and lets her fingers be guided.

Carla presses them inside herself to the second knuckle.

“Carla…” Lisa mewls.

Carla releases Lisa's wrist and brings her hand back to Lisa’s hair, which she gathers a handful of.

Lisa sinks her fingers deeper, and Carla can feel the way she’s curled them, hooking their pads against the deepest, softest spot inside her.

Lisa lets out another guttural whine. “Carla— you feel so fucking good.”

“Christ—“ Carla tightens her grip on Lisa’s hair and holds her head tight against her thigh, desperate to feel close. “Fuck me,” she begs, trying to maintain her composure, not sound too desperate.

Lisa pumps her hand in earnest, once, then twice, two fingers sliding in and out. The sensation makes Carla lightheaded, and she lets her head fall back against the cushions, eyes closing and hips bucking against Lisa’s movements.

“Baby…” she hears herself panting.

She lifts her head again when she feels wet warmth against her clit. She knows what she’ll find before she even opens her eyes:

Lisa’s hungry mouth against her, lips latching around her clit, beginning to suck noisily.

“Lise, careful—“

She paws at Lisa’s forehead, but she’s ignored.

Lisa has slipped into her own world, is lost in her own subservience, lips and tongue sloppy and wet. When she lifts her mouth momentarily to come up for air, Carla can see that the mess she’s made is more than just slick and saliva. Her chin is smeared in red, the cut on her lip fully re-opened with the force of her want.

Carla startles. “Your lip.” She reaches to brush her thumb over Lisa’s chin. “You’re hurting yourself, baby. You’re bleeding.”

“Want to,” Lisa slurs. “Let me.” She leans into the touch, tilts her head forward and captures Carla’s thumb in her mouth. Her eyes leak tears. “For you,” she mumbles, the thumb muffling her.

Something spikes in Carla’s tummy. It's all somehow more intense, she thinks, than anything else they’ve ever done.

Nerves fluttering, she hooks her thumb over the inside of Lisa’s bottom teeth and drags her face forward until it’s buried once again between her legs.

“For me, hm?” she husks.

She knows there’s something twisted happening between them, but she feels powerless to it. Whatever it is, they’re hurtling toward it at a startling rate, unstoppable.

Lisa nods pathetically, her nose bumping Carla’s clit, and then, when Carla releases her jaw and pulls her thumb away, she sinks in once more, her bloody mouth latching over the entirety of Carla’s cunt, her hand beginning to pump again beneath her jaw, two fingers sheathing in and out.

When Carla coos at her about how well she’s doing, she makes a sobbing sound and laps even more insatiably. She looks divine, entirely thoughtless in the throes worship.

And Carla burns with it, feels her toes curl and her stomach tighten. She has no idea what’s possessed her when she rasps—

“Let me taste.”

Lisa’s eyes widen, and Carla can tell she’s understood.

She pulls her mouth back and runs her fingers through Carla’s folds, then lifts her hand up to Carla’s mouth with an expression on her face Carla thinks she’s never seen before— one of absolute, unbridled, wanton desperation.

Her fingers taste how she imagined: musky— the familiar taste of her own wetness— and equally so, metallic— the unmistakable flavor of Lisa’s blood, of his unsuccessful attempts to control them.

She lets Lisa’s fingers slip from her mouth and they fall limply to her chest, where they drag over the fabric of her dress, leaving a wet trail.

She feels unexpectedly emotional. “I can taste you,” she whispers.

Lisa looks destroyed. “All for you,” she incants. She presses a bloody, open mouthed kiss to the inside of Carla’s thigh. “Do anything for you.”

Carla exhales. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

“Ruin myself for you,” Lisa mumbles. Her lips smear and slide.

“Mine,” Carla breathes.

She lifts her hips in indication and Lisa’s mouth returns there, fingers pressing once more against her opening, sliding inside.

Carla whines, feels like she could start to cry, if she let herself. “Look at you," she chokes. "My brave girl.”

Lisa whimpers into her cunt. “I am,” Carla thinks she hears her mumble.

And she feels it wash over her—

What they're doing is the ultimate act of defiance: here they are, playing with the blood he drew from Lisa’s face, their shared desire more powerful than any violence he could ever inflict on them.

She feels suddenly euphoric, untouchable.

He will never understand what they have, she thinks. He is small, and horrid, and insecure, and in fact has no idea of the gift he has given them.

She looks back down, and the mess has intensified; the crimson red evidence of Lisa’s devotion is all over them both— on Lisa’s lips and chin, and between her own legs, too, smeared on her clit and the insides of her thighs.

“Oh, baby,” she breathes. “My baby—“

She slides her fingers down between her cunt and Lisa’s mouth, covering her fingers with it, and then wipes them against the softness of her lower belly, which pokes out from beneath her bunched up skirt.

The motion leaves a shiny red trail, and Lisa reacts immediately, makes a throaty noise and rises on her haunches, dragging her mouth over it, lapping up what Carla’s left on her stomach, only to deposit more blood in her wake.

“Jesus, Lise,“ Carla hisses.

Pleasure bubbles and jumps in her chest, and she lets her head fall back, her fingers finding the crown of Lisa’s head and holding her there gingerly.

She guides Lisa’s face back down between her thighs.

She feels insane.

Feels huge in her power.

“Suck my clit,” she husks, lifting her head again, and Lisa’s mouth is there in an instant, obedient and perfect.

She squirms, and for a moment, her brain short circuits at the vision—

She almost can’t believe that the woman moaning lewdly into her is the same one she’d seen be entirely emasculated not hours ago, that the face so desperate and messy peering up at her is the same one she’d watched smash against a bar top.

She inhales sharply, her resolve stuttering.

“You’re sure?” she manages. “That this is okay?”

A tear leaks from the corner of Lisa’s eye. Emotion or effort, Carla's unsure.

“Wanna be good for you,” Lisa mumbles.

Carla’s stomach clenches. “Darling—“ Lisa’s fingers bottom out inside her. “Oh, darling—“ Her chest feels tight with emotion, and she wonders if she, too, might be in danger of beginning to cry.

Lisa fucks into her.

Her pleasure builds and builds.

“Feels so good,” she gasps. “So good—“

Lisa lifts her ruined face and curls her fingers deeper, harder. Another tear tracks a clean line through the blood on her jaw. Her chest heaves with effort.

“Messy, baby,” Carla chokes, rutting against Lisa’s fingers. “God, fuck, don’t stop, baby— baby—“

Lisa’s fingers find the perfect spot inside her, and she reels.

“Right there, Lise.” She reaches forward to cup Lisa’s uninjured cheek. “Right there, don’t stop,” she whimpers.

Lisa turns her face into her palm, her brow furrowing. She lets out a moaning sob and Carla can see her baring down, pumping harder and faster. She opens her mouth and kisses Carla’s hand, drags her lips to the soft inside of her wrist, soiling her red and shiny.

Every part of her body has become so sensitive that the feeling of Lisa’s lips almost burns her, and pleasure bursts from her mouth, leaking out alongside a mangled cry.

It’s only minutes, after that. Lisa finds a rhythm inside her that sends her careening, and with Lisa’s face in her palm, close and safe, she thinks almost nothing could drag her back from the edge.

She chokes out a warning in the seconds before she actually gets there, and Lisa falls forward into her lap as it descends, her hand pumping furiously and her cheek pressing warm to her thigh.

Carla grips her as she comes, feels herself clenching and pulsing and soaring, Lisa latched to her lap and sobbing out pleas of her own. And in the wide, stretching expanse of her climax, she feels they're more connected than they've ever been.

She’s still floating somewhere in the ether when she feels the couch cushions shifting, and she opens one eye to the sight of Lisa climbing up beside her, inching down to lie on her back, her head resting in her naked lap.

She opens her other eye. Lisa looks destroyed. Her mouth is pulverized; her bruises have deepened and spread, and Carla thinks her right eye has maybe begun to swell slightly smaller than her left.

She combs her fingers back into Lisa’s hair as she catches her breath, and emotion crawls up from inside her and perches high in her throat.

“Love you,” she pants out.

....

She has to clean Lisa up again, but this time she does it in the shower.

She puts her under the warm spray and wipes carefully at her face, then soaps up her arms and tummy and back.

Lisa melts into the touch.

And Carla can’t deny her; she pauses momentarily and allows Lisa to fall into her. Their bodies press together beneath the warm water; Lisa’s arms snake weakly around her waist and her face comes to rest against her bare chest.

She kisses the top of Lisa’s wet head.

“Gotta rinse you, darling,” she murmurs, managing to pull herself away.

After, Lisa shivers outside the stream while Carla rinses her own body, too.

Between her legs, Lisa’s blood has become dried, a dark terracotta smear on her thighs and pubic bone. She wipes at herself until she’s clean, and she watches the water swirl light pink around her toes and down the drain.

She's begun to feel sort of numb— exhausted by the whiplash of the evening— by the time she turns the water off and herds Lisa out of the shower. 

In the bedroom, they dress separately.

Carla puts cream on her damp face, brushes the tangles from her wet hair.

She stares at herself in the mirror, and she finds suddenly that she can’t break out from the cage of her inner world. Her internal compass tilts sickeningly to flashes of the man’s sputtering, ugly face, contrasted against the vision of Lisa between her legs, bloody and devoted.

She floats in and out of the present. Her mind’s eye feels like a wasteland; her hands feel shaky; her stomach feels a little sick.

It’s a bit like coming down from a high. An awful crash, all her endorphins sapped away.

Her girlfriend is behind her with a busted lip. A man beat her because he saw her as a threat to his weak, shriveled manhood.

She’s reeling in the shadow of this awful realization when Lisa’s voice grabs her and drags her back to the light.

“Come to bed,” she hears.

She lets out a breath. Can’t speak.

She leaves her hairbrush on the vanity and turns.

Lisa’s in her pajamas and has turned the bed down. The duvet is pulled back, inviting her in. Only a single lamp by the bedside is still on, and the room is dim.

“Come,” Lisa says. She pats the crisp sheets they picked out together at M&S last summer.

Carla remembers moseying through the aisles there together, giggling about their dreams for their new home. Giddy and in love.

So much of her life, she realizes, she has spent existing obliviously as if she’s not in constant danger, just for being.

She’s so ignorant, isn't she.

Daft. Thoughtless.

What a privileged life she lives to not have to worry. Most of the time, that is.

In the absence of her vigilance, she’s allowed a terrible thing to happen to the woman she loves.

She crawls onto the sheets, which are cool beneath her bare knees.

“Spoon me?” she asks.

Lisa nods. “Go on my side,” she says, pointing. “My face, y’know. Can only lay on the one.”

Carla feels her chin ripple with a painful wave of emotion. “Baby…” she manages.

“I’m alright.” Lisa points again. “Go on.”

Carla scoots until she’s on Lisa’s side, then curls up in a fetal position and waits until she feels Lisa slot in behind her.

Lisa’s chin comes to rest on her shoulder; an arm snakes safely around her middle.

Unexpectedly, a choppy breath heaves from her mouth, spilling up and out like a wave of sick.

“Love you,” she tries to say, but she sobs instead.

“Oh— oh, darling.” Lisa draws her in closer, leans forward so that their cheeks press together. “Hey, shhh…” She rocks their intertwined bodies. “Carla, shhh. It’s alright.”

Carla shakes her head fervently, her eyes blurring with an unwelcome bout of tears. She feels silly, crying like this when she’s not the one who’s had her face smashed in, but when she tries to make her mouth form an apology for her sudden outburst, nothing of substance comes out, and she instead just whimpers, quiet and choppy.

Lisa hooks a leg over her hip and squeezes her whole body. The pressure feels good. She’s always loved when Lisa holds her this way, like a tiny koala on her back, and the thought and the sensation is comforting.

She inhales and exhales, hiccups, holds her breath, then counts to ten.

Lisa is quiet behind her as she fights her way through it.

She rolls to her back when the wave has passed.

Lisa remains quiet, and Carla is reminded that no other lover has ever known her like this. That no one has ever learned her intricacies so intimately, or known so well which moments in which to be patient, and to wait.

“Are you crying on my behalf?” Lisa asks, finally. She brushes carefully at Carla’s damp cheeks with the backs of her fingers.

Carla takes another steadying breath and closes her eyes.

She’s not sure, really, she realizes.

“I don’t know,” she says honestly, eyes still closed.

Lisa is quiet.

Carla swallows the still-lingering lump in her throat. “He wanted us to be afraid, didn’t he.” She opens her eyes. “And— and we were, weren’t we. I hate that.”

Lisa looks contemplative. She doesn’t say anything.

Carla reaches to ghost her fingertips over Lisa’s purple cheek. “Hate how small he made us feel, y’know? And I hate that he got what he wanted. And that he probably will again.”

Lisa tilts her head side to side, considering. “Well, he’s likely in a cell tonight,” she says. “Surely that’s not what he wanted.”

“No,” Carla agrees. “But he hurt you, all the same. And that is what he wanted. To hurt you.” She looks down. “And to own me, or something, I guess.” She pauses. “Though I’m not sure how he thought beating my girlfriend would make me somehow more likely to want to fuck him. Idiotic cunt.”

Lisa shrugs. “In my eyes, I don’t think he succeeded at all. It’s just a flesh wound, right? And he hasn’t got you, has he? I do.”

Carla tries to smile. “S’pose not.” She threads their fingers together and studies how they intertwine. “I just hate feeling afraid. And I hate to think you’ve spent your whole life being made to feel afraid like that. It’s not right.”

Lisa draws back an inch, studying Carla’s face. “I’m not afraid,” she says.

Carla wipes beneath her eyes with her free hand.

“I’m not,” Lisa insists. “I deal with worse all the time.”

“Well, I don’t. And I am.”

“That’s okay, though, darling. It’s perfectly valid that you feel afraid.” Lisa slides a hand over Carla’s tummy, then slips it up under the hem of her shirt, stroking the skin there softly. “And you have me, right? To protect you.” She leans in to bump her nose against Carla’s cheek, then draws back again to look at her.

An ache grows huge in the box of Carla’s abdomen. She stares at Lisa’s swollen face and she loves her more than she ever has, thinks she’s more beautiful, more safe, more lovely.

“And, I mean, to be frank, darling, when you’re alone, you pass,” Lisa continues. She brushes at Carla’s wet hair with her fingertips. “So you’re safe.”

Carla closes her eyes to the feeling of Lisa’s hand touching her.

“And I know it sounds awful, but I think in time you’ll get more used to it.”

Carla nods.

“We live a blessed life here. People know us, and they’re open-minded. It’s not exactly like you’ve had much practice dealing with it.”

Carla lets out a frustrated sound and opens her eyes. “Practice,” she says ruefully. 

Lisa is still staring down at her. “As awful as it sounds, yeah, practice.”

There is a long pause, then. Reality sits heavy around them.

It cracks when Lisa leans down to brush their lips together, and it’s so soft that the kiss is almost not there at all.

Carla thinks it’s probably all she can manage, can only imagine how much her face must hurt. Her chest clutches again at the thought, and she twists behind herself to glance at the clock, where she sees it’s become so late that actually, late has turned to early.

“We should sleep,” she says.

Lisa nods. “Shall I turn the light out?” She tugs the chain beneath the lampshade and plunges them into darkness. And then, “lay on me,” she whispers.

Carla feels around on the sheets until she finds her. She throws an arm and a leg over Lisa’s middle and lays her cheek down on Lisa’s warm, thumping chest.

And she does feel safe, she thinks.

Here, like this.

Here, in this room.

Together, in this quiet, perfect sanctuary where she is every version of herself.

Where she is queer and messy, masculine and feminine. Where she gives care and receives it.

Feels the biggest she ever has, huge and looming and powerful.

And the smallest, curled safe beneath Lisa’s protective shade.

....