Radical (23 page)

I shrug but realize she can’t see me. “I think less
knew
, more
thought it looked like crap
.”

Lucy turns the chicken, moves some pieces to a dish, and adds more to the pan to be cooked.

“It’s not a big deal. It gets — got — in my face sometimes, at training, when I was trying to sight. I guess they noticed.”

“Sight?”

Crap. “The targets. My hair kept falling in my eyes.”

“Targets. So . . . a gun?”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

I could lie. I could lie and she’d never know. “A rifle.” Not a lie, just less scary for her than listing all the different guns, especially the AR-15.

“You’ve shot lots of guns.”

“Yes.”

“Do you own a gun or . . . guns? Is it even legal for you to own guns?”

“Not in my name. Can’t until I’m eighteen,” I say. “But . . . yeah, I have guns.”

I look at my feet swinging free and then hop down from the counter in case we’re about to argue about this.

She cooks and I stare at her back.

“It’s not a big deal,” I say. “We like to shoot.”

“What do you shoot?”

“Targets, clay disks, squirrels. Whatever’s in season. But for training, mostly targets.”

“Here,” she says, handing me the plates. “Make yourself useful.”

We eat more than talk because we’re both starving and it’s really good, something I tell her three times before she starts mocking me, but she’s pleased. Or maybe because she’s thinking. I’ve avoided talking about training or Clearview with her, sensing it wouldn’t be her thing. I guess I was right.

“So . . . your grandparents are gone until when?” I ask, hoping to remind her of the evening we’ve had planned.

Lucy lets one side of her mouth creep up. “They’ll be gone until at least midnight, probably later.”

I look at the clock, pretend to count the hours, hoping she’s still into it.

“Don’t worry,” Lucy says. “We’ll have plenty of time.” Her smile is promising. “After you do the dishes.”

“Fair enough,” I say, snagging a piece of chicken from her plate.

I do wash the dishes, but she dries, putting them away as we go. When we’re done, she hangs the dish towel over the edge of the sink and turns. Cool Lucy is back in form, walking toward me with all the promise of what is to come.

We kiss in the kitchen, just a few small kisses, and then stop to take turns in the bathroom. I’m sure she brushed her teeth. I use my finger to push some toothpaste around my teeth, too. In her bedroom, she’s turning on the small lamp by the bed, and already her shoes are lying where she kicked them off by the door.

The same quilt on the bed. Same dim lights and that smell of her. But this time we both know why we’re here. This time I kiss her and let my hands wander.

She takes my hands, barely breaking the kiss, and pulls me toward her bed. And then she’s leaning back, like last time — different dress, but everything else the same. Except this time I don’t hesitate to take off my shoes and join her.

It takes a few minutes of shifting and elbows and legs tangling up before we have our heads on the pillows and our feet toward the footboard, Lucy lying on her side facing me.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” I say back, our breaths puffing over each other’s mouths.

By now we know how to kiss each other. Soft and deep and urgent and soft again until everything is warm and humming.

If she were wearing a shirt, I’d slide my fingers under the hem and test the waters. But her dress is tangled between us.

I trace my fingers over her bare leg just above her knee, just to see, and she pushes against my thigh. I tug at the hem of her dress.

“Yeah.” She leans away and we untangle enough that I can pull it free from where it’s caught. But she doesn’t take it off.

She kisses me again, a small kiss, soft, all lips. And again, turning my head this way and that. I touch her over the dress, over her bra.

I’ve touched her before, even under her shirt, but never like this — when I can see her, and take my time, and not worry someone is going to catch us.

She rubs at the sensitive short hairs at the back of my head, encouraging me. I kiss her shoulder, her chest just above her dress. I feel the weight of her breast in my hand.

Swallowing hard, I try to be cool. But . . . being here, like this, is more than I could have imagined when I first saw her. I kiss her throat so I can hide my face, hide how big a deal this is for me.

“Yeah,” she says, and I feel it against my lips. She rolls onto her back, pulling me with her.

“Touch me.” She rubs my arm. “Please.” She pushes my hand under her dress.

I’ve never done this part, not with someone else. But she’s asking, and there’s no way I’m saying no. I watch her face and go by touch — skin, and then elastic and cotton on the back of my hand, and then soft, slick hotness. She gasps and pushes against my fingers. I follow her sounds, trying to find where she wants me, but I don’t know how she wants to be touched.

She grabs my hand, guides me until, “There,” she gasps out. “There. Just. Wait.” She gets rid of her underwear, and then grabs my hand again. Putting it where she wants it. “Yeah.” Her breath hisses away and sucks in and hisses away again. I try to focus, but I’m shaking with it, with doing this, with how good it feels — and she’s not even touching me. Yet.

I find a rhythm; she gasps and nods, and I try to keep going steady. She grips my arm, keeping me there. She’s quiet except for the gasps and little part-words. I can’t stop looking at her face. I lose the spot and she says, “Higher,” and groans when I’m back in the right place. I concentrate, clenching my teeth, determined not to lose the rhythm again. And then she’s shaking, shoving my hand away but clinging to my arm, panting into my shoulder.

“Yeah,” she finally says, letting go of my arm so I can pull my hand free. She stretches like a cat, taking a deep breath.

She’s smiling and absently running her fingers through her hair on the pillow, making happy little sounds, but I don’t know what to do with my hand. I hold it away from her and from me, trying not to touch our clothes. Especially mine.

“That was good.” She rolls up onto her side and pulls me close for a kiss, trapping my hand between us. I let her kiss me but try to keep my hand away from my shirt.

When she pushes at my shoulder, I grab her arm out of instinct. My fingers are sticky on her skin. She doesn’t seem to care.

She kisses along my jaw, over my neck, up my ear. I can feel, inside, how I thought I’d feel, but it’s like it’s far away. She knew exactly what she wanted. I want her, I want everything, but what if I can’t get there, if I freeze up when it’s someone else touching me? I don’t think I can show her like she showed me.

She leans up so we can see each other, her hair hanging in my face. “My turn?”

I close my eyes behind the burn in my cheeks.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want.” Her hand rests very lightly on my ribs. “I’ve read about, like, stone butches, and about gender identity, and if you, if it would ruin this for you if I touch you there, if I . . .”

“What?” I get the words but not the meaning, and all of a sudden it’s all too confusing and the room is stuffy and stifling. I pull out from under her and sit up.

She lies back with a bed-jiggling flop. “Look, we don’t have to do anything. Ever. I mean, it was good, but you don’t have to —”

“I liked that,” I say. She peeks out at me from under her arm. “Touching you was good.”

“Very,” she says, nodding. “And I needed that. Been too long.”

I try to process that. The “too long.” Not at all something new for her. Or special. But good. Good is good. Stop thinking.

She tugs at my shirt. I lie back down on the bed, too, but keep some space between us. She stays on her back, both of us staring at the ceiling. “What do you like?” she asks. There’s no teasing there. She’s not whispering. So why am I ready to squirm away?

I can feel her turn over, the shift of the bed, her voice closer, her breasts brush my arm. But she leaves that little bit of space between us. “Bex?” she whispers, and she leans over, kisses my shoulder, and then pulls back.

“I haven’t . . . not with someone else.” I hold my breath.

I can hear a clock ticking somewhere in the room.

“So I’m your Shug Avery?”

I shake my head. “I’m no Celie. Just . . . haven’t gone that far.”

“Do you want to?” Her mouth is so close to my ear that her breath makes me shiver.

Yes. I didn’t think I said that out loud, but then her lips brush my jaw, her fingers trace circles on my stomach.

“We haven’t talked about, like, how you identify. If you want to keep your shirts on, that’s okay.” I open my eyes so I can see her. “I don’t have to touch your chest. Or would even touching your coocher ruin this for you, or —?”

“My what?”

She blinks. Stares. Then her whole face changes. “I do not use the P word.” Her hand flails out in emphasis. “Or
any
other C word.”

“But . . . coocher?”

“What do you call it?” I shake my head. She’s wide-eyed incredulous. “You
have
to have a word.”

“Why?”

“Why? What do you mean, why? Because . . . you have to have a word. For yourself.”

I think about it. When I was little Mom said
front bottom
, but . . . somewhere along the way we stopped saying anything.

“Like”— she leans closer —“what if I said, ‘Can I touch your . . . vulva?’ ”

We both laugh, her face burying in my neck.

I think about that. About saying anything about . . . there.

“Vajayjay?” she asks, her hand trailing up my ribs.

“No way.”

“Hooha?”

“Like, yeah”— I swallow as her hand moves over my chest —“please, please touch my throbbing hooha?” She laughs again, and I feel it like she’s laughing inside me. “Yeah, no.”

“Then what?” Her fingers trace some pattern across my chest and then slide down, retreating and then circling around up my side, closer again, and down again, until my breathing is following her fingers, the pattern. Deep in and then held until her fingers trace away, then exhale. Over and over. Until it feels like her fingers are everywhere. “How about the good old labia and clit and vagina?” she whispers.

“Whatever you want.” Don’t stop. And then her hand is touching my chest. Flat on my back, there’s barely anything to hold through the layers of my clothes.

She kisses my cheek, and my neck, and her hand burrows under my shirt, under my tanks.

“Do they need to be this tight? And two of them?” she asks when she can’t quite get her hand under my tanks. “It’s not like you need that much control,” she teases.

But she’s wrong. “They’re more comfortable than your torture devices,” I say, taking them off and tossing them over the side of the bed.

She cups my breast, barely a rise in her palm.

“I don’t like any bumps under my shirts,” I say.

Lucy kisses my jaw. “They just seem
really
tight.”

“I like how they feel,” I say against her hair.

Her lips on my throat. “Like a hug,” she says.

Like armor.

“You smell good,” she whispers.

“So do you.”

She kisses my shoulder, my chest, and lower.

“Hey.” I pull at her dress. “You, too.”

She stands up so she can strip off her dress and her bra, and then waits for me. I take off my shorts and underwear and toss them on the floor, trying not to squirm when she looks me over before climbing back into bed. She’s beautiful, and soft. Her skin is warm where it touches mine.

Then she’s doing things to my breasts that I didn’t know would feel good, despite how many times I’ve tested the theory. We didn’t go here in the car. I’m gasping at how good nails can be. Her mouth is even better. I arch up, making stupid noises, but I don’t care. I had no idea it would feel this good, that I’d feel it everywhere.

She doesn’t ask for permission, not with words, but her fingers are tracing a new path, down my ribs, along my waist. She pauses, giving me a chance to stop her, waiting. I don’t stop her. Not when her nails scratch over the skin of my belly, or when her fingers slide down between my legs. She pulls her hand away and moves so she’s leaning over me, and then puts her hand back without any of the slow, careful seduction. I move to give her more room and then gasp as every nerve flares.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” She kisses my shoulder.

Her fingers keep going, even when my whole body is moving in every direction.

“I don’t think I can . . . I . . .”

“Just feel,” she says.

“I can’t . . .” But I can, maybe. Maybe.

We lose the rhythm, then the place, but she clamps her legs around my thigh and her fingers get there again. I stop feeling anything because I’m feeling everything, until everything goes tight and hot and I can’t breathe and I let go with a wail. Loud. I cover my mouth, groaning again, but she stays there until I push her hand away.

“Too much?”

I can’t talk, but she gets it, scratching her nails lightly on my skin, snuggling closer, kissing my neck. Her sticky fingers slide across my ribs to my side. I don’t mind at all.