“Okay,” Sophie said. “Fair enough.”
Constantly stealing sips from Jo’s glass before they kissed might get complicated, Sophie decided. She wanted to kiss Jo, and it probably wasn’t worth keeping on drinking herself if she had to swish her mouth out every time. And more, drinking all night might make Jo run away, if what was going on was what Sophie thought was going on.
Sophie emptied her glass, drank it back in one gulp, then put it down on the floor. She took Jo’s glass out of her hand, and swished juice around her mouth as best she could without making sounds like she was brushing her teeth.
She swallowed.
Jo was watching her, quiet.
“I get it,” Sophie said.
Jo seemed to be thinking.
“I do, I’m pretty sure,” Sophie said. “My parents have a couple of friends.”
Everyone her parents age had a couple of friends, she thought. No-one made much of a fuss, but after a while Sophie had noticed how everyone else was offered a beer except a particular couple of people, and they were just handed soft drinks without being asked.
“You’ll have to tell me about it sometime,” Sophie said.
“Or not.”
“Or not,” Sophie said, not really caring. She sipped juice again, swallowed again. The glass was almost empty. “Is that okay?” Sophie said.
Jo looked at her.
“Have I had enough juice?”
Jo looked uncomfortable, like she didn’t want to be asked that so directly, then she nodded quickly.
“Do you want any more?” Sophie said.
“I’m fine.”
Sophie stood up. Jo just looked at her.
“Come on,” Sophie said. “Since this is going to end up in bed anyway.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Would you have bothered with the juice if you didn’t want to?”
Jo thought about that, then after a minute, she stood up too.
Sophie grinned, and went out into the hall, and down to her bedroom. Jo followed, without saying anything else.
*
In the bedroom, Sophie kissed Jo some more, then pulled off her shirt, then pushed Jo towards the bed.
“Lie down,” Sophie said. “I’ll rub your back.”
Jo seemed surprised. “I’m good.”
“You’re tense as shit. And I think me drinking didn’t help.”
Jo looked at her for a moment. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “Right. Of course not.”
“Don’t,” Jo said.
Sophie stood there for a moment and wondered if she’d gone too far. She crossed her arms over her chest, and felt terribly awkward, and said quietly, “Sorry.”
“Just don’t,” Jo said. “Please. Don’t tease me.”
Sophie nodded.
“Fuck,” Jo said. Annoyed, but at herself, Sophie thought.
Jo looked at her door, like she was thinking about leaving.
“No,” Sophie said. “Stay here.”
“Yeah,” Jo said, undecided.
“I’ll mind my own business,” Sophie said. “I promise.”
Jo nodded. She stayed where she was.
“We’re good?” Sophie said.
“Yeah.”
Sophie kissed her again. Every time she kissed Jo it was an involving as the first time. Every time was as intense.
“Don’t try to understand,” Jo said into Sophie’s mouth. “Please.”
Sophie stopped kissing. “Okay.”
“It just makes it worse.”
Sophie nodded. “I won’t. But lie down and let me rub your back.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You need to relax. And sometime you should tell me about the orange juice. But for now, just lie down and let me, okay?”
After a moment Jo did.
Sophie tugged off Jo’s shirt, and sat across Jo’s back, and rubbed her shoulders until Jo relaxed so much she went all limp and floppy. Jo might have actually gone to sleep for a moment, Sophie thought, but didn’t say anything to disturb her. Instead Sophie shifted where she was rubbing, started stroking lower down Jo’s back, rubbing harder, and woke her up on purpose.
Jo turned over, and they kissed some more. Sophie lay on Jo and kissed her and felt their bare chests rub together.
“I don’t care if you don’t give me head,” Sophie said suddenly.
Jo opened her eyes. “What?”
“Too soon?”
“You’re kind of assuming you’re getting some at all.”
Sophie grinned. “I don’t care if you don’t give me head, that’s all. I don’t mind.”
Jo kept looking at her.
“I don’t.”
“I don’t get it. What’s the punch-line?”
“No punch-line. I just like fucking.”
Jo lay there, like she was wondering what to say. Sophie was used to that. Everyone did that, because no-one seemed to understand.
Normally she wouldn’t have said anything, not this soon, but Jo was trusting her with knowing about the orange juice, and this was all Sophie had to tell her back. And because she thought may as well explain now, since she always had to in the end.
“Like hands,” Sophie said. “Or legs. Fucking is… intimate. Like I want to be held, and I want to look at your face while we do.”
“Oh,” Jo said.
“Like head is wonderful and everything and I’m not saying it’s not. But what I really want is to look into your eyes and kiss you and come. It’s so, so much more intimate than just fucking someone’s mouth.”
“Yeah,” Jo said. “Okay. I think I get it.”
“I’ll still do you, though,” Sophie said. “I mean, obviously. If you want me to.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
Sophie grinned. “Except for how I want it that way.”
Jo kept looking up at Sophie, as if she was thinking. She’d done that earlier, Sophie remembered, in the bar, had sat there and just looked at Sophie thoughtfully after Sophie said something about Jo being the prettier of the two.
“What?” Sophie said.
“You’re worth making happy,” Jo said. “You know that, right?”
Sophie didn’t understand what Jo meant, so she shrugged.
“I mean, you’re worth going down on. If you want me to.”
“Okay,” Sophie said.
“You are.”
“I heard. Um, why?”
“Just so you know you are. If you want me to.”
“I don’t want you to, though,” Sophie said. “I want you to fuck me, and to look into my eyes while you do.”
Jo hesitated a moment longer, then nodded.
“We’re both talking too much,” Sophie said. “Seriously.”
Jo grinned. “Yep.”
They kissed some more, a lot more. Later they had sex.
Sophie went down on Jo, and tasted her, and wanted Jo in her mouth, but she pulled Jo up when Jo tried to give Sophie head back.
“Just your leg,” she said, and lay there, getting fucked and held and stroking Jo’s face, and kissing her sometimes, and looking up at her face.
It was everything Sophie had hoped it would be. It was perfect.
*
Afterwards, Jo was quiet for a long time. Sophie hugged her, and wondered if she’d gone to sleep.
Then Jo stretched, and said quietly, “Fuck I need a drink.”
Sophie sat up. “I’ll get some water.”
“Not water.”
Sophie was quiet for a moment. “Oh,” she said. “Because of this?”
“Pretty much.”
“I’m sorry.”
Jo shrugged.
“Is that a good idea?” Sophie said. “To have a drink?”
“Not at all.”
“Do you want to tell me yet?”
Jo shook her head.
“Okay,” Sophie said. “So don’t.”
After a while Jo sa
id, “Thanks.”
Later she said she should go, and told Sophie not to get up, and went and got her clothes out the dryer. She said she’d let herself out, and kissed Sophie for three minutes before she left. Sophie could see her alarm clock, and it was three minutes.
Because Jo had kissed so long, Sophie assumed that meant they would see each other again.
She lay and held the shirt Jo had just taken off and breathed in the smell of her and was happy.
*
The Second Night: Two Weeks Later
After two weeks, Sophie had seen Jo four times, and every time had been like the first. Jo was private, and touchy, and kissed astonishingly well, and Sophie desperately wanted to keep seeing her.
Sophie wanted to be around Jo. She wanted to fuck Jo. Part of her felt like she didn’t know Jo at all, and she wanted to fix that, but she made herself be careful. She had a feeling that asking too many questions might frighten Jo away. Jo hadn’t said anything more about the orange juice and why she didn’t drink, and Sophie hadn’t asked again. She’d just stopped having wine or vodka herself, if Jo was around, and had started brushing her teeth if she’d had a drink when she knew Jo was on the way to see her.
“It’s been two weeks,” Jo said that night. “This is like an anniversary.”
“Yep,” Sophie said, then wondered if she should have hesitated slightly longer and pretended she hadn’t realized already. “I suppose it is,” she added after a moment.
They were lying in bed, both looking up at the ceiling. It was late, and the room was dim, lit only by one lamp. The traffic noise outside was quieting down. Sophie was watching Jo stroke her leg. Watching how the muscle moved in Jo’s arms as she did, and how the deep shadows on her skin made different patterns as her arm changed shape. Sophie was on her side, curled slightly, hugging Jo, and had her hand between Jo’s legs, resting it there. Jo had been smiling at her now and then, tenderly, like Sophie was some sort of huge pervert for wanting to keep on touching Jo after sex. Like Sophie was insatiable.
Sophie had two fingertips inside Jo, but wanting more sex wasn’t really why. It was like looking into people’s eyes as she came. It was intimate, leaving part of herself inside Jo, tenderly, after they were done.
“It’s been good,” Sophie said, after a while. “This. With you.”
It had been. It was good and comfortable and happy, even if Sophie sometimes wondered whether she deserved someone quite as wonderful as Jo.
“Yeah,” Jo said.
“I like you,” Sophie said. “You’re very calm. You seem like a very calm person.”
“Maybe,” Jo said.
Sophie hesitated, wondering if she should ask. She decided she would. Tonight was sort of an anniversary, even if only a pretend one. It had been two weeks, and they’d had sex half a dozen times, and everything seemed to be getting serious. And it wasn’t like Jo had told Sophie not to ask, not forever.
“Is that something to do with no drinking?” Sophie said. “Being calm?”
“Yep,” Jo said. “But shut up, okay?”
And now Jo had said not to ask, Sophie thought.
“Sorry,” Sophie said. “I didn’t mean...”
Jo lay there for a while. “Me too,” she said. I’m sorry. That was a bit sharp.”
“You never talk about yourself,” Sophie said. “That’s all”
“About what? The orange juice?”
“About anything.”
“Oh,” Jo said.
“You just don’t talk about yourself much, and I’d like to know you better.”
Jo seemed to be thinking about that. “Yeah,” she said. “Fair enough, I suppose.”
“Is that unreasonable?”
Jo was quiet for a while. “No,” she said. “No, it isn’t.” Jo sat up and pushed a pillow behind her back. She leaned on the end of the bed, and looked at Sophie. “So ask,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
Sophie had to think. She hadn’t actually planned this enough to have questions worked out. She had a feeling asking about the drinking right away would be bad, so instead she said, “What do you like to do? Other than work and fuck me?”
“Not that much, really.”
Sophie was a little disappointed Jo wasn’t going to tell her anything after all.
“Don’t be like that,” Jo said. “I mean it. I used to drink beer with mates, then spend hours in the gym working off the beer with mates. Now I watch mates drink beer and I still go to the gym.”
Sophie looked up.
“Seriously,” Jo said. “That’s about all I do. That and you.”
“Talk to me about the beer.”
Jo hugged her knees in front of herself, and sat there for a while. “I’d rather not.”
“Not why,” Sophie said. “Not anything important. Just what I need to know. What I should do and not do.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you won’t kiss me when I’ve been drinking.”
Jo didn’t move. “No.”
“You don’t drink beer with mates any more.”
“I don’t.”
“I don’t care why. Not if you don’t want to tell me.”
“Okay. So why are we talking about this?”
“So you know I’ve noticed. So you know you can tell me if there’s anything I should do.”
Jo looked at Sophie, and seemed to be thinking.
“So if there is anything I should do…?” Sophie said.
“Don’t kiss me when you taste of liquor.”
“Okay.”
Jo nodded.
“I won’t,” Sophie said. “I’ll remember.”
“Thank you.”
“I want to know the rest sometime,” Sophie said, after a moment. “But I won’t push.”
“Don’t.”
“I won’t.”
“Talk about something else now, okay?”
“What?”
Jo shrugged.
Sophie hesitated, and tried to think of something to say. “I almost didn’t say yes,” she said. “When you asked me out.”
“That’s fine. You didn’t have to say yes.”
“I almost didn’t say yes because you make me insecure.”
Jo looked at her for a while.
“You do,” Sophie said. “You’re hot and fit and perfect, and I look shitty beside you.”
“Soph, no, you…”
“Don’t,” Sophie said. “It doesn’t have to be true to make sense to me.”
Jo nodded, unsure.
“I hate being with people who I think are better than me,” Sophie said. “Like more of a catch them me.”
“Is that what you think I am?”
Sophie shrugged.
“You shouldn’t.”
“Of course you’d say that.”
“I’m really not.”
Sophie kissed her. “I think you are.”
“Except that,” Jo said, and looked at the glass of orange juice beside the bed. There was still always a glass of orange juice beside the bed, because Sophie always made sure to have it in the house now.
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “Except that. So that makes us even.”
“Even?”
“Yeah.”
Jo looked at her and didn’t seem to know what to say. “Are you all right?” she said in the end, still seeming concerned.
“I’m fine,” Sophie said.
Jo nodded, and kissed her, and a little while later Sophie turned off the light.
*
The Third Night: Some Months Later
After three months, Sophie and Jo had become a couple. They were spending half their nights together, at one of their houses or the other. Jo worked a lot, and sometimes worked late, and was a little obsessed with staying fit, but she always made time for Sophie, even if it was in the middle of the night. Sophie, happy with whatever Jo could give her, organized herself around that.
They’d talked vaguely about not seeing other people, and bo
th had said they weren’t. That seemed enough for the time being. Jo had said early on she needed her space, and didn’t want to move in together too soon, or get serious too quickly, and Sophie had said she was fine with that too.
Sophie knew what she needed. She knew how she was. She might be unsure of herself at times, lacking in confidence, but she’d never been clingy. Being a couple and living apart suited her as much as it did Jo.
Sophie wanted Jo. She liked Jo, and wanted Jo, and while she didn’t understand everything that was going on about the drinking, she understood enough to get by. She’d decided a while ago she’d give Jo the first three months to say something on her own, and then start asking questions. Because Sophie needed to know, even just a little, and three months was a bit arbitrary, but ought to be long enough to make it okay to ask.
And now it was the third month anniversary, and Sophie had been wondering all day if she should. Or if she should just stay quiet, and ask nothing, maybe forever.
Then it almost didn’t matter. She found something else to worry about instead.
After work, as she was leaving her office, Sophie did what she usually did and phoned Jo.
And Jo answered, panting, breathing heavily.
So Sophie said, mostly teasing, “I really hope you’re at the gym.”
And Jo said, “Ah, no,” then went all quiet.
Sophie knew why. Jo thought Sophie was serious, and jealous, and had meant that question how it sounded. And a little part of Sophie had.
This kind of thing happened more often than it should. Jo often assumed Sophie was jealous, because Sophie occasionally was, and Jo was cautious, and didn’t know Sophie well enough yet to tell the different times apart for sure, so she erred on the side of assuming the worst. Sophie was jealous because in her heart she still thought Jo was too good for her, and sometimes she made herself moody thinking that one day Jo would give up and leave. Jo noticed those days, even if Sophie didn’t say how she felt. Jo knew her well enough to see when she was upset, Sophie had decided, but not well enough to know when not to worry. Jo worried a lot about this side of Sophie, and worried that she couldn’t fix it. She didn’t get angry or impatient or sick of Sophie’s insecurities, she just worried. Like Sophie being insecure meant Sophie was selling herself short, and Jo didn’t like Sophie doing that.
Jo was one of the best people Sophie knew, one of the kindest and most patient, and this right now was Sophie’s fault. It upset Sophie to cause problems like this by mistake.
“Fuck,” Sophie said. “I…”
“I’m running,” Jo said. “I promise I am.”
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “I know. Fuck.”
She knew Jo was running because Jo always ran after work. Sophie had started to notice the pattern. Jo ran after work, like Sophie assumed that once she’d used to drink after work, and was now making new habits for herself. Sophie had started waiting for half an hour before she phoned, if she finished early, so Jo had time to have her run. So Sophie didn’t get in the way of something she still didn’t quite understand.