Work Text:
“I think I need a belt for this outfit, can you pick one out for me?” Eddie was reclined on the bed as Stevie stepped out of the bathroom, a tissue between her lips to blot off the excess lipstick she'd just applied, and she nodded in agreement. It was a Saturday so, of course, they were at Eddie’s. Since they’d gotten together, they’d spent every weekend at the house and it had been weeks now so she knew exactly where the belts were kept, top drawer, just inside the closet door, on the right.
As she opened the drawer, her eyes skimmed over the choices, a variety of black leather, each one only slightly different from the one that preceded it. Most of them looked new, shiny and polished, there was only one that showed signs of wear, its finish matte. So well loved, she thought to herself as she plucked it from the drawer, shutting it behind her and presented it to Eddie, who was standing just outside, apparently watching her pick.
“Good choice,” she said with a smile, taking it from her, but she made no movements to put it on, as she headed out of the room and down the stairs. Stevie followed suit, a few steps behind as Eddie weaved her way through the house until she entered the garage door off of the kitchen, flicking the light on before grabbing something off of the work bench and turning to Stevie again.
Her fingers slipped the leather through the buckle then placed the belt over Stevie’s head, swooping her thick mop of straight, brown hair out from the loop, before tightening it around her neck securely. Stevie swallowed hard as Eddie’s ringed fingers moved between her skin and the soft leather, the cool sensation of metal against her warm flesh sent a tingle down her spine, as she closed her eyes. As soon as they were closed, they flew back open, the sensation gone, the fingers, the metal, the leather, replaced by clattering at the work bench that Stevie hadn’t even noticed stood against the far wall, Eddie pulling open drawers, snatching out items, before closing them again.
She moved closer, peering over the other woman's shoulder to get a better look at what she was doing. She hadn’t noticed Eddie scoring the belt around her neck but with the material stretched out over the wood, she could see the rough indication the other woman must have made for her intended target. It took two taps of the hammer for the metal tube to punch a hole through to the other side, leaving behind a little circle of black leather that Eddie swept into her hand and dropped into the trashcan, after returning her tools to their rightful locations, the belt finally ready for wear.
They had a big day out planned, by Eddie, in the city, she’d announced, as though her house was located somewhere outside of Chicago, but Stevie knew what she meant. They’d gotten in a terrible habit the last few weeks, staying in bed most of the day, never venturing out. It was heaven, in Stevie’s opinion, this honeymoon phase, she’d only seen in movies and tv, where the new lovers couldn’t tear themselves away from each other. When she was in high school, she remembered being like this, a little bit, but by the time she’d gotten to college, it had faded away, each new partner, by that time, new boyfriend, becoming less and less thrilling than the last. She’d chalked it up to hormones, she wasn’t a horny teenager anymore, she was a mature person who had a life, and friends, and hobbies. But clearly, it hadn’t been that.
Stevie would never call Eddie cheap but she was frugal. That was almost the first real thing she’d learned about her. If Stevie tried to order from a delivery app, Eddie would insist on calling the restaurant instead, “those apps are a scam, they charge you more and undercut the restaurants.” So when the town car pulled up in front of the house, genuine shock washed over her, this was a big day. The car dropped them off at a restaurant, the second one they’d been to together, the only other being the disastrous dinner with her father, which she wished terribly to wipe completely from her memory.
It wasn’t the fanciest place, dark but not dingy, the kind of establishment that had been around for a hundred years and would be around for a hundred more, and the food was good, old school pub stuff, hearty, like Eddie liked it, stuff that stuck to your ribs, a place where getting Stevie’s lunch go to, a salad with dressing on the side and a lean protein on top was the wrong choice and that was by design, she was sure of it, like so many of Eddie’s suggestions, designed to push her out of her comfort zone, inch by inch.
The Art Institute was the last place she expected to go next, even though she’d recognized the neighborhood when the car dropped them at the restaurant. As she watched Eddie pay for their admission, Stevie almost reached into her wallet to retrieve her membership card but the other woman had been so insistent about this being her big day, her big plan, she didn’t want to risk upsetting the apple cart with any change in plans. The tickets were general admission, Stevie hadn’t been interested in a particular exhibit when she’d asked, she didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d already seen them all, on private tours, before they’d opened to the public.
They took the elevator up to the top floor and started to work their way down, slowly, methodically, studying each piece as they went. “So, is this your go to?” Stevie asked, her voice light, once they were half way through the second room.
“Go to?” Eddie asked, her eyes not moving from the Picasso on the wall, all primary colors, all rudimentary shapes.
“Yeah, like for a first date?” It was their first date, she’d realized, as she’d gotten dressed that morning, it fit all of the criteria. The first time they’d be out in the world together, just the two of them, on a planned outing, a date!
“Oh no, I’ve never been here.” Both of their gazes had been fixed to the modernist landscape in front of them but Stevie’s eyes moved to the other woman’s face, studying it to see if Eddie was joking, the dry joke they sometimes made, that she had a hard time catching.
“Wait, how long have you lived here? Like, in Chicago?” Stevie didn’t have a Chicago accent but she also didn’t have an accent from anywhere else, growing up in boarding schools would do that to you. Eddie didn’t have a Chicago accent either but given the little she knew about them, if she’d grown up here, she should at least have a trace of one.
“Eight years, so not that long.”
“Eight years is a really long time to live somewhere and not go to its most famous landmarks. Do you not like art?” There was a trace of worry to her voice as she asked the question, the idea of Eddie picking this activity simply because she thought Stevie would enjoy it gave the whole activity too much weight, too much importance for what was supposed to be a fun day out, no pressure, no stress.
“Oh no, I love art.” They shuffled down the line of pieces, turning around to study a sculpture, large, white, a woman’s figure like a classic marble nude but inlaid into it were drawers, all just the slightest bit ajar. “It was my favorite subject in school. If I’d actually graduated high school and had good enough grades to go to college, I would have probably studied it, that or music.”
Eddie was dropping nuggets of knowledge about herself at an alarming rate, and Stevie was having trouble picking them up, trying her best to shove some of them away for later, to follow up on.
“So why haven’t you been here before?”
“Work,” she answered, as though having a job precluded someone from doing anything outside of it.
“I wish you would have told me you hadn’t been here before. I could have arranged for a private tour.”
“Who do I look like, the King of England? Why would I need a private tour?”
“I just meant, with my membership, we could have come after hours and had someone tell us about each piece, so that way, you could get the full effect. And you know, you would have had someone to talk to about the art, cause I really don’t know anything about it. Like, I love art but I don’t understand what any of these mean really.”
Finally, Eddie turned away from the piece in front of them, her eyes meeting Stevie’s, a little fire glowing in them, “Stevie, members get in free!”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So you had me pay for tickets when you already pay all that money every year anyways.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I didn’t want to interrupt your flow, you had a whole plan.”
“That is so wasteful!" They’d been holding hands and Eddie picked them up, guiding them to her lips and biting lightly at her knuckles. "Oh, you are gonna get it when we get home.” As a devilish grin tugged at the other woman’s lips, Stevie could feel the flush of red bloom at her chest, starting its slow creep up her neck, her eyes darting down to the belt around Eddie’s waist then back up to her mouth.
Somewhere on the next floor down, they drifted apart without really noticing, each of them drawn to something different. It wasn’t until she reached the Georgia O’Keeffe piece, Hands and Thimbles, that she suddenly felt the loss. The print was of a woman’s hands, fingers long and dexterous, sewing something into the dark fabric below. The hands weren’t like Eddie’s at all, they were soft and delicate, the nails extending past the end of their fingers, but it reminded her that hands exist, that Eddie’s hands exist and that they weren’t touching her.
She’d dressed for the weather that morning, mid 60s, in a sweater dress and tights. But suddenly, everything she was wearing was wrong. Why had she worn this dress? The neckline was so high, too high for Eddie to reach her hands into it, to cup her breasts through her bra, run her fingers over her nipples, the cool of her rings causing them to jump. Why had she worn a dress at all? If she’d just worn a top and skirt, Eddie’s hands could roam her torso freely, running circles over her skin, careful not to miss a single inch. And why had she worn tights? If she hadn’t, Eddie could slip her hands up under her skirt, into her panties, and…
“Hey baby, where’d you go?” Eddie asked, her hands curling around Stevie’s waist, pulling her in as her gaze broke from the art she’d been staring at.
“Oh, nowhere.” She searched her mind for an explanation, something other than where it had actually been. “Sorry, I think I just spaced out a bit.”
“Don’t be sorry,” the other woman’s lips were at her ear, as she whispered, “it’s a really interesting piece.”
The rest of the museum was a blur. It wasn’t every piece they looked at but too many of them shoved her back into her daydream, allowing her to only think about the many things she wanted Eddie to do to her, the many places she never used to let her mind wander to but that she couldn’t stop herself from going when the other woman was around.
By the time they finished up, the sun was going down as they stepped out into the chilly fall air, a little shiver ran through her as they discussed their next stop. “There is a really cute place, just down the road, that serves cocktails and usually has a live band if you want to go there.” In the minute it took for Stevie to think about it, Eddie slipped off her leather jacket, wrapping it around Stevie's shoulders without a word.
“That sounds lovely but… could we just go home?” she wrapped her own arms around herself so her hands met Eddie’s on the edge of the jacket, holding it closed around her, as she smiled over at her sweetly, leaning in to kiss her, a kiss that she’d intended to be soft and delicate but turned on her immediately, like she wasn’t in control of her own lips. It only lasted a few seconds, like a fire that burned too bright too quickly and ended up putting itself out in the process. As soon as they pulled apart, Eddie flagged down a cab to take them home.
“How much do you pay for the membership?” The question was deadly serious coming from Eddie, as they slipped off their shoes, leaving them by the front door.
“Well, technically I don’t pay for a membership. My father just donates a lot of money to them every year, as a birthday present for me. He used to buy me these crazy expensive gifts that I hated, like that ugly chess set in my apartment, so I finally asked him for this instead one year and now it must be on autorenewal or something cause it’s all I get now.”
“Okay, well, what level membership do you get then?”
“I think it’s… diamond,” she answered as she struggled to get the card out of her wallet to show to Eddie, while the other woman stared at her phone, only glancing up for a second to look at the card.
“Stevie, he has to donate like $60,000 a year for that!”
“Oh, wow,” Stevie feigned surprise at the figure, a figure she was pretty sure her father spent in an average week without even trying, a figure he wouldn’t even bat an eyelash at spending on himself. “Well, I mean, I do get, like, private tours and invitations to events and stuff. And it’s really handy when people come to visit and Robin uses it all the time.”
“I just can’t believe you let me pay for those basic tickets when you’ve got a fancy membership. You know I hate wasting money.”
“It was $28.”
“It’s the principle of the thing. Why wouldn’t you just tell me?”
She shook her head, hard enough that she hoped to shift the clutter in her brain, to shake the answer loose. Although she didn’t need to do that, she knew the answer, she just didn’t want to say it out loud. It was the same reason she couldn’t answer truthfully when she'd asked her where she’d gone earlier. She couldn’t tell Eddie because she didn’t tell anyone anything. Somewhere along her life, she had just stopped, stopped telling people what she wanted, what she needed, what she had and what she lacked. And outside of Robin, Dustin, and Claude, no one had noticed, no one even bothered to ask, until Eddie.
Her fingers were in her mouth, just the tips, as she spoke through them, chewing lightly without even noticing. “I don’t know. I guess, I didn’t want to spoil your plan, I thought you’d be mad, like I was showing off my money or something. I don’t know.”
Eddie reached for her hand, taking it in hers as she made her way up the stairs to the bedroom. “It is very bad of you to not tell me things.” As Eddie dropped it, she stood silently in the middle of the room, watching the other woman undo her belt and set it on the bed. “If you don’t tell me little stuff like that, how can I trust you to tell me the important stuff?”
Her eyes were fixed on the belt as she shook her head. Her teeth bit at her lip, she needed something in her mouth to stem the worry that was rising up in her. “I will, I promise.”
“That isn’t good enough,” she watched as Eddie reached for the hem of her dress, pulling it up and over her head, like she was a doll being played with, throwing it to the side. Without a word, Stevie slipped her thumbs into her own waistband, slipping off the panties and tights in one fluid motion. The bra followed suit, falling onto the pile of clothes, so she stood naked in front of Eddie, still in their sharply pressed shirt and slacks, as Eddie reached for the belt from the bed, doubling it over in her hand.
“I need you to tell me things, I need you to advocate for yourself, I can’t read your mind and it isn’t fair for you to make me do that.” Stevie hadn’t even registered her own movements, that she’d bent over, placing her hands on the end of the bed, presenting herself to Eddie.
“I know,” she answered, matter of factly.
“Do you need to be punished every time you lie to me? Will that do it?” It was a scene, she realized suddenly, or at least, she thought it was a scene. The tone in Eddie’s voice confused the issue, she sounded upset, hurt even, not flat and neutral like she normally did when they played. It didn’t make Stevie scared, the emotion in her voice, it made her sad, like she was hurting Eddie by making her do this, making her punish her, but she shook her head yes anyways. She’d wanted this since this morning, when she’d picked out that belt, hoping that she was picking it out for this purpose and not just to tie an outfit together. “Yes sir, I need to be punished.”
The belt stung as it made contact with the soft flesh of her ass, worse than the hair brush or the paddle, so much worse than Eddie’s hands, and she breathed in sharply. The other times they had played like this, Stevie exaggerated the pain, or she thought she did, making the noises that she’d heard in porn, playing it all up for dramatic effect but when the leather made contact again, the wince she let out was completely involuntary. Winces turned to moans as her body adjusted to the pain, her muscles allowing themselves to relax more with each stroke, her mind floating away.
She didn’t notice the pain stop, the change in rhythm, the tightening of the belt around her neck, until it was fixed in place with the newly punched hole and Eddie used it to pull her off of the bed, before shoving her to her knees and leaving the room. When she emerged, she was naked, except for the strap-on that hung between her legs. Stevie marveled at the harness she recognized from before, enjoying the contrast of Eddie’s pale flesh against the leather, the meat of her thighs creating the littlest of mounds between each strap.
The dildo was new, smaller than the last one, which had seemed modest to her at the time, although if she really thought about the dicks she’d been confronted with in real life, this one seemed more on the average size in comparison. Once Eddie was close enough, she reflexively opened her mouth and slipped her lips over it. With the use of her hands, she worked it in and out of herself, slowly, her eyes locked on the other woman as she gazed down on her. Stevie could feel the wetness that had started earlier that day, in the museum, dreaming of Eddie’s hands, as it started to drip down her thigh.
In and out, in and out, she worked diligently. She could feel the silicone tickle the back of her throat when she’d taken most of it in and she made a mental note of the position to stop as she increased her pace. Her cheeks were hollow and starting to ache as she felt Eddie’s fingers slip into her hair, the nails of them running light paths over her scalp, until they found where they wanted to stay, wrapping tightly around clumps of her hair on each side of her head. Then, suddenly, she wasn’t in control of her paces anymore, as the hands in her hair pulled her off completely then sunk her head back down, the dildo moving past her previously set stopping point, the head of it slamming into the back of her throat. She gagged uncontrollably, sputtering against the silicone, as her body tried to pull away. Until, like magic, her throat was clear again and she breathed with a sputter, spit rolling down her chin.
She didn’t remember closing her eyes, they must have done it themselves and when she opened them, it was just in time to feel the pressure again, this time unrelenting as her throat convulsed against the sensation, her body working against her to free her from a place she didn’t want to be free of. Her hands gripped the other woman's thighs, but she didn't squeeze them, careful not to silently signal a stop. Tears sprung to her eyes as Eddie held her in place, until the gagging subsided, until her body relaxed, no longer in fight or flight, as she breathed deeply through her nose and the silicone slipped from her lips.
A look of annoyance or maybe concern washed over Eddie’s face as she lifted Stevie to her feet. She could feel the cool metal of Eddie’s rings brush the back of her skull, wedging themselves between the leather and her skin to hold the belt in place, so it pushed at the bottom of her jaw upwards rather than compressing her airway, folding her over in the process. With her dominant hand, Eddie ran fingers between her legs, teasingly, back and forth until finally letting them settling on her clit, encircling it slowly, then pinching it between two of them, digging her nails into each side.
Stevie’s chest heaved up and down, as she groaned at the pain, low and heavy, still not recovered from the adrenaline rush of earlier. She’d never felt more in her body than she did in that moment, every sensation traveling to her brain at lightning speed, like a super highway that was overdue for a crash. Then she felt one finger slip inside her, the sharp shooting pain as her body tightened around it for it to simply pull out, leaving her empty again.
The next thing she knew, she felt the silicone pushing inside her, hard and unyielding, the stinging between her legs almost too much to bear. It wasn’t like the last time, where Eddie couldn’t make any headroom, where her body had simply refused to allow them to gain entry. Instead, her body was working at cross purposes, begging to be filled but refusing to relax enough for that to happen. And unlike last time, Eddie didn’t stop, instead pushing into her slowly and deliberately. The pain wasn’t like what she’d experienced from the belt, a sharp impact that lasted a second only to be replaced by the throbbing ache as a reminder, this was constant and unrelenting and she needed it to stop.
“Stedfast,” she forced the word out of her lungs, barely audible. So long, why had she picked such a long safeword? She repeated it with more force this time, “stedfast!” but Eddie had already pulled out of her, already wrapped her arms around her waist, pulled Stevie up and into her as the belt fell to the base of her neck, loose without the force of a hand holding it in place.
“Good girl,” Eddie whispered in her ear, almost inaudibly over the sound of their ragged breathing as it mixed together in the air around them. The tears must have returned at some point because her vision was blurry as the salty water flowed down her face, dripping off her chin. She wiped them away, along with the drool that clung to her chin. After undoing the belt, Eddie set her on the bed, on her back, to look up at them, a wide smile on her face as her own breathing slowed, her body relaxed.
“We can do anal,” she didn’t know why she said it but the words still tumbled out of her mouth anyways.
“Do you want to do that?”
“That’s just what usually happens at this point,” the smile dropped from Eddie’s face at the words and she wished she’d just said yes, even if it wasn’t the truth. Her hands clambered to her mouth, as though she could put the words back.
Leaning over her, Eddie’s lips were inches from her open mouth. She wanted so badly to push herself up, to close the distance between them, but all the energy she had in her previously had drained from her completely and she couldn’t move. “I’m not one of those creeps you used to date. When I fuck you in the ass, it will be because you’re begging me to, not because I want to get off.”
“I know, sir,” she nodded, watching Eddie fall to her side, the other woman’s arm draping itself over her as her gaze followed hers. “I’m sorry.”
“Why do you do that?”
Her strength was returning to her body a little as she readjusted to her side, propping herself up on an elbow. “Do what?”
Eddie’s leg moved over hers, hooking her in place, almost like she was trying to keep her from running away. “Ask for things you don’t want?”
“I… I don’t” she stammered, trying to think of the best words to use, the most efficient manner to convey the essence of her. Somehow she landed on “I don’t want you to resent me like in The Duke of Burgundy.”
“What are you talking about?”
Stevie took a deep breath before continuing, a little annoyance creeping into her voice. “You’d know if you’d watch any of the movies I suggest but it’s about a lesbian D/s couple where the sub is really bossy and keeps making the Dom do these boring, repetitive scenes that she’s not into but the Dom is so sweet and loves her so much and the sub doesn’t even care so they kind of end up stuck in this situation where the Dom is just going through the motions hating her partner. It was heartbreaking! Like Pillion but the opposite. And I kind of think it’s a commentary on lesbian bed death.”
“Is this like how you thought Pillion was a metaphor for housewives' malaise?”
“Okay, I still think that, cause it is. Stop acting like I haven’t read Betty Friedan.”
“You have not read Betty Friedan.”
“Fine, but I watched Ms. America with Robin so I got the general concept. My point is, I don’t want you to resent me. I just want to do whatever you want. Like, if you just wanted to have vanilla sex for the rest of our lives, I would. I don’t care!”
“That’s not what I want.”
“It was just an example.”
“Is that what you want?” The other woman’s fingers reached up to her face, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, lingering on the side of her cheek.
“No.”
“Do you think what you want isn’t as important as what I want?”
“Maybe,” her eyes fell from Eddie’s, the gaze too painful to keep if she was actually going to be honest, if she was actually going to say the things she kept locked up.
“That isn’t true. You know that right?” Stevie nodded in response as Eddie pulled her hand from her face, running it over her own face, almost in frustration as she sighed. “This is my fault, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let it get like this.”
Stevie’s eyes flashed back up as the anxiety grew in her stomach. “What do you mean, get like this?” Her voice was small, slight, as she reached out to Eddie, removing her hand from her face so they could be face to face again.
“The first day, when you said you didn’t know what you wanted, I knew you were lying but I thought you’d loosen up and you were paying me so I just kind of went with it, like I reused some classic scenes and I thought you would eventually crack basically but you didn’t. And now…” Now it was Eddie’s turn to struggle over what to say, as she watched her mind work, watched her try to craft the perfect sentence, “I can’t do this…”
Her heart sank to the bottom of her chest, she knew she shouldn’t have said the safeword, she should have just let Eddie keep going. What is a little physical pain compared to the emotional wreckage that waited on the other side of those words. Eddie took a deep breath then continued, “I can’t do this if you aren’t going to open up. It’s too scary, I feel like I am always walking on eggshells, like I’m going to do something that you don’t like but I won’t know about it until it’s too late and I will have ruined everything completely.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat before responding, “you won’t do that.”
“You can’t promise that. And even if that were true, that’s not what I want. I want to know everything about you, I want to know everything you think and everything that you feel. I don’t want to be in a relationship with this two dimensional version of you. I want to be in one with you, all of you.”
At those words, Stevie sat up on the bed, crossing her arms in front of her body, trying to cover herself up, suddenly too exposed, definitely too exposed for what she wanted to say. “That isn’t fair,” her words were more powerful now, a little bit of her own annoyance behind them.
“How is that not fair?” Eddie mirrored her change in position, sitting criss-cross apple sauce across from her. Stevie’s eyes flashed down to Eddie’s lap, suddenly realizing that she must have taken the harness off at some point. Now she was too aware of how naked Eddie was, how unfulfilled things had ended, how much she wanted to touch Eddie not fight with her. Her arms loosened around her as she wrenched her eyes back to the other woman’s face.
No, if Eddie wanted to have this conversation, they would have this conversation. “Because you aren’t being honest with me.”
The other woman’s eyes narrowed, a look of confusion furrowing her brow, so Stevie continued, “You went off and had top surgery, now you’re growing a mustache, and I swear that your voice is getting lower. I googled transition and everyone said I’m supposed to just wait for you to tell me what’s going on but you aren’t telling me anything and I feel like I’m going crazy.” As she spoke, her body got tight, curling into itself until her knees were under her chin and her arms were wrapped around them.
As Eddie’s hands trailed up Stevie’s calves, her eyes softened. When they reached the iron grip on her knees, Stevie let go, allowing their fingers to intermingle, to pull her loose again. “You’re right, that isn’t fair. I’m sorry. I just, I didn’t know how to talk to you.”
“I don’t want you to tell me something you aren’t ready to share,” Stevie said, sniffling a little, as she stretched her legs out in front of her. “But I want you to know that you can tell me. Nothing you say will change how I feel about you, nothing you do will make me stop loving you.”
Tears filled Eddie’s eyes now, like dark pools, as Stevie let go of her hands, wrapping her arms around the other woman. Eddie crawled into her lap, letting her head rest on Stevie’s chest, her dark, curly hair tickling her chin. Her crying was almost silent, Stevie wouldn’t have even realized it was happening if not for the tears falling onto her own skin. As she pulled Eddie into her as tightly as she could, her thumb traced small circles where it lay, as they sat in silence.
Finally, Eddie wiped at her eyes before sitting up again to look at Stevie. The words tumbled out of her as though she had to spit them out or they would never be said. “I started taking testosterone after my top surgery. And like you were a client, so no offense, but I didn’t own you an explanation, and then everything between us happened so quickly, and I didn’t want to say anything that would ruin that and now it’s been months since I started and I just couldn’t find the right time and then too much time had passed, and…”
Stevie let out a laugh, rolling her eyes. “Oh, so you were avoiding it. Typical man!”
“Woah, woah, I don’t want to be a man.” The look on Eddie’s face could only be described as indignant, as though Stevie’s assumption was an assault to them on a foundational level.
“I’m sorry, I just assumed. Cause like testosterone and top surgery together, I just…”
“I thought you wanted me to share.”
“Sorry, you’re right, go on.”
“I just want to be neutral, like a blank slate, so I can be whatever I want to be that day. I never really felt like a woman, not consistently, not outside of having tits, or a vagina, or a period. And I don’t want to be a man, well, maybe sometimes, but like on a very temporary basis. I just want to be me.”
Stevie always felt acutely aware of her body, the space it took up, the way it formed around her, never quite how she wanted, always lacking, painfully so. So it was strange to be able to divorce Eddie from their body so easily. She could picture them as more feminine, as more masculine, as fatter, as thinner, as more beautiful, as more handsome, even as uglier, but there was no image she could conjure up that she didn't find immensely attractive. “I just want you to be you too.”
Eddie’s lips met hers, pressing a soft kiss into them, then another, and another, before pulling away. “Oh, another thing, I think you have vaginism.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I was googling, cause I can do that too, and I think that’s why we can’t…”
“Okay? So you’re just confirming that I’m broken right now, thanks!”
“No, I’m saying that you have a treatable medical condition. And that I don’t care if we have penetrative sex, like I literally do not care. But I know you do care so we should look into treatment.”
She took a deep breath, holding it for a beat too long, to steady herself, before exhaling. Stevie didn’t want to cry over something that felt so dumb, someone googling around about her body, somebody telling her something she needed to hear. She’d dated so many men, so many men who got so mad at her when she wouldn’t let them fuck her or when they tried and couldn’t, so many men who didn’t bother to ask her what she wanted, didn’t bother to consider her feelings, just dumped her like an inconvenience or like Tommy, kept her around, used it to their advantage to get what they wanted. There was a small part of her that wished one of them had been decent, one of them had cared enough to ask, so then she’d have at least thought about it herself, allowed herself to think outside of the box she held this part of herself in, locked away, never to be addressed. But in this moment, she was glad none of them had, she was glad it was Eddie telling her this, because she knew she wouldn’t have listened to them, she would only have been able to hear this from Eddie. They didn’t need that from her, there was nothing in it for them, this was for Stevie and Stevie alone.
“Okay, I’ll go see a doctor about it.”
A smile spread across Eddie’s face, the same wide grin as before, after Stevie had said their safeword, after she’d actually advocated for herself. “Perfect! Now, tell me what you were thinking about at the museum earlier, when you were totally out of it?”
Stevie laughed, her hand moving to Eddie’s hip, her thumb tracing lightly over their skin again. “You,” a matching smile spread across her face.
“What about me?”
“I was thinking about your hands, all over me, how I want your hands all over me all the time, I want you to do whatever you want to me no matter where we are.”
“Tell me more,” their teeth trapped their bottom lip as their eyes roamed over Stevie’s naked body, their hand moving to her knee, then up her leg slowly.
“I was thinking about how I need to start dressing differently, so you can have more access, so you can fondle me and play with me anytime, slip your hands into my bra, put your fingers inside of me in public,” her voice was low, almost a whisper as Eddie’s hand racked up her thigh slowly, then back down, teasingly.
“Do you really want that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you really want me to finger fuck you in public or is this just a sexy thought, a fantasy?” her eyes had grown heavy as she spoke but she willed them to look at Eddie. “I just need to know exactly what you want. Cause if you want me to do this for real, there would probably be consequences. Or if you want to explore voyeurism, we could go to a sex club or a play party, like there are options. I just don’t want to do something that you don’t actually want.”
Stevie drew her desires to the front of her mind, holding them for a minute, searching them for what she really wanted, interrogating them for their meaning. “It’s mostly a fantasy, although I do want you to touch me more, like when we’re out in public, but not in a public indecency way, just in a quick, like you can’t keep your hands off of me way, like you’re so desperate to touch me you’d risk jail time but not really, if that makes sense?”
“That makes perfect sense. What do you want to do now? We could get dressed, I could make dinner, and while we watch tv, I can let my hands go walking.” Eddie laughed, as they stood their fingers up on the top of her leg, pretending the middle and pointer fingers were legs, letting them walk up her body slowly.
“That sounds good. Can we do that but after you tighten the belt around my throat again and let me eat you out?”
“Sure baby, whatever you want!”