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I - NOVEMBER 1986
Sure, she’s thought about it before.
But which sixteen-year-old girl hasn’t thought about kissing their best friend? Really, everyone does it. Part of growing up, and all that.
Except…
Max has thought about more than a casual brushing of lips—practice for boys—and more than hands clasped together innocently in the dark. She’s thought of a real kiss—a kiss that lingers, that might mean something. She’s thought of taking off El’s clothes, pictured what might lie beneath them. She’s imagined touching—
It’s ridiculous, really, the way her mind coughs, sputters, kicks lazily back into gear, and the very first thing that swims into her brain is soft brown hair and eyes to match. She frowns, shakes her head, cracks an eye—and, miraculously, the girl in her head is replaced by the real thing. Her lanky body is folded into a hideous armchair, the upholstery slightly warped in such a way that suggests someone has slept in it for weeks.
“El?” She croaks out the name, bewildered. Where the hell is she?
The girl startles, almost falls out of the armchair, and leaps to her feet. “Max? Max!” El throws herself down onto Max’s chest, nearly knocking the wind out of her. “Thank God. Are you okay?!”
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II - DECEMBER 1986
Five weeks later, she’s allowed to go home. Five grueling weeks of re-learning how to use every muscle in her body, made especially grueling by the way her heart jumps and rattles in her chest whenever El looks at her (which is all the time, Jesus Christ, it’s almost obvious enough to give a girl hope, or something). One would assume that being in a coma for months would wipe out something as silly as a crush.
The date couldn’t come fast enough, in Max’s opinion. It’s been torture, trudging slow laps around the hospital cafeteria with El on one side and Lucas the other, her body clumsy and uncoordinated. Every now and then she still lurches unexpectedly sideways, and El’s arm slips snugly against her waist each time. Lucas seems unbothered, happy to stay half a step back and fill the silence with pleasantly mundane chatter.
The others visit, too, and keep her supplied with the latest copies of her favorite comics. Still, she can’t wait to go home, and when the day finally arrives, she almost puts herself back into a coma when she misjudges the distance diving face-first into her mother’s car in the hospital parking lot.
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III - FEBRUARY 1987
They don’t talk much about what happened. They don’t need to; they’ve each endured so much that it’s enough just to be there for each other. They’ve fallen into the unspoken habit of spending almost every night together, always on separate sides of the bed but still close enough to reach out and interrupt the near-constant nightmares.
She’d tried to lean on Lucas, at first, but the romance between them seemed to have dissipated. She can’t blame him, really; she was unconscious for nearly six months, and he’s a teenage boy, so it’s only natural for him to have moved on.
El didn’t move on. El stayed. El slept at the hospital. Joyce said no one could convince her to leave—
It’s an especially bitter day in February when Max wakes in a cold sweat in El’s bed, gasping for air. El reaches over, places a hand on her arm as she always does, and usually it’s enough, but this time it isn’t. Max turns to El, panicked, but before she can speak, she’s bundled back down into El’s arms.
“It’s okay,” El mumbles, voice thick with sleep. “I’m here.”
Her arm is heavy across Max’s chest, anchoring her down from the dream that’s tugging away at her like a kite. “El,” she gasps, and arms tighten protectively around her.
Fully awake now, El shuffles her way on top of her until they’re nose-to-nose, touching everywhere, and at last the dream begins to fade. “Max,” El says softly, and strokes a knuckle soothingly down Max’s cheek once, twice, three times. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Finally, her breathing slows. She grabs at El, needing her closer, and the girl drops willingly down into Max’s body like a weighted blanket. She snuggles into the crook of Max’s neck, presses a kiss to her throat, and they both freeze.
After a moment, El rears her head back, uncertain. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Max breathes, and she isn’t sure if it’s the winter chill, the late hour, or El’s proximity that gives her the courage to say: “You can…do it again. If you want.”
There’s a moment of utter silence during which Max begins to ponder the absolute depth of her own stupidity, but then—lips fall to her cheek. El lingers, breathing out against Max’s skin.
Do friends do this?
El pulls back, and Max can just make out her face by the dim glow of the streetlamp on the street corner. Her expression is new, unreadable, but somehow Max still guesses what she’s about to do.
El leans down and they’re kissing, slow and tentative, the barest brush of lips. Max lets her explore, sighs as featherlight kisses are pressed first to her upper lip, then the lower. El draws back just enough to nudge their noses together, makes a low noise in the back of her throat, and Max can’t hold out any longer—she reaches up, tangles her fingers in El’s hair, and pulls her down for a proper kiss.
No…friends definitely don’t do this.
El responds immediately, tilting her head and deepening the contact. Max’s heart is pounding in her chest, her brain is short-circuiting, and her hands tremble when she strokes them gently over El’s face. El cuddles closer, tangling their legs together sweetly as they kiss, and Max holds her tight.
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IV - APRIL 1988
She’s scared. Really scared.
It’s been a year and some change since that cold February night, but the world’s biggest butterflies still erupt in Max’s stomach each time they kiss. Tonight, though, they’ve crossed another line, and the butterflies have seemingly evolved into pterodactyls to commemorate the occasion.
El must notice because she pulls back, brow furrowed, and peers into Max’s eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I—" Max starts, feeling foolish. “I don’t know. I’m just nervous, I guess.” She hangs her head, and her hands slip uselessly from El’s waist.
“Me too,” El whispers, catching Max’s hands and encouraging them around her shoulders this time. Her own hands alight softly on Max’s waist, twisting her fingers into the well-worn flannel and pulling them closer together. Max’s breath catches in her throat, and she settles against El’s body, eyes fluttering closed at the feeling of their chests pressing together.
“I’m really nervous,” El repeats, and they let out a simultaneous breath of laughter. “But…I don’t want to stop. Do you?”
“No,” Max replies at once. “I don’t. I really don’t, but I…” She trails off, embarrassed. “I’m afraid I won’t know what to do.”
“Oh, Max,” El murmurs, and entices her into a kiss. Their mouths slide and stick together, and Max shivers when El slips a hand into her hair. “It doesn’t matter what you do, and long as it’s you. Okay?”
God…
In lieu of an answer, Max kisses her harder, linking her hands behind El’s neck and opening her mouth into the kiss. Struck suddenly with confidence, she presses El firmly backwards into the pillows. She’s delighted by the reaction: El’s brown eyes widen, her mouth falls open, and she scrabbles for purchase in Max’s shirt until Max takes hold of her wrists and pins them to the pillow above her head.
“Not s-scared anymore?” El chokes out, hips lifting slightly off the mattress.
Max barely hears her, kisses her again, insistent, almost desperate for her mouth. El gasps and clutches at her back, and Max drops her hips down into the softness of her quivering thighs. It feels like the most natural thing in the world, then, to grind down with purpose, so she does—and El’s moan is unlike anything Max has heard before. It washes over her, flushes her skin, makes her heart skip a beat. She made that noise for me?
She feels almost drunk with the feeling, overcome with the need to hear it again, so she strikes up a rhythm with her hips and drags a line of open-mouthed kisses across the skin of El’s neck. She girl positively writhes beneath her, meeting every thrust, wrists trembling in Max’s grasp.
“Is this okay?” Max breathes. El nods, almost frantically, and Max is flooded suddenly with feeling for her. She wants to hold her close, worship every inch of her, draw it out for days. She releases one of El’s wrists and teases her hand under the hem of her shirt, fingertips mapping the subtle curves of the girl’s soft belly.
“Max,” El whimpers. “Oh…”
Fuck.
Max feels almost as though she’s possessed, then—she noses at El’s throat, sucks a bruise into her pale skin, and reaches up to cup El’s breast. She isn’t wearing a bra, and Max kneads gently, experimentally, at the impossibly soft skin, thumbing over her nipple. El moans again, rolling her hips insistently, and Max can’t help but grind down into her, an overwhelming heat rushing between her own legs.
It's a blur, then: she takes El’s clothes off, pausing to admire her with eyes, lips, and hands, sucks mark after mark into her pale neck, teases her breasts until she pleads for more. She draws El’s legs tight around her waist, unable to resist grinding into her again and again, delirious and stoned on the sounds she makes, the way she feels, the smell of her…
“Please,” El begs, and Max can’t deny her a thing. Her hand slips into her underwear, into slick heat, and her mouth falls open at the feeling; she’s so wet that Max can’t even tell what she’s touching. El clutches at her, stroking over her face and hair with shaking hands, and Max can’t resist searching out her lips again.
The kiss is sloppy and open-mouthed, perfect in the moment. Max’s hand feels uncoordinated between El’s legs, but it seems to be just what El needs if the increasingly desperate rolling of her hips is anything to go by. Her face is scrunched, eyes shut tight, and Max can’t look away.
She’s so beautiful. She likes what I’m doing. She likes what I’m doing.
“Max—I’m gonna—”
Max’s heart jumps into her throat and her fingers falter for half a second at the thought. “Really?” she whispers into El’s jaw, and the girl nods desperately beneath her. Max presses a kiss to her cheek, lets her breath tickle her ear, and El gasps and shivers.
“I—I like that—Max,” she heaves, and Max, ruined by her and unable to think of anything but pulling more of those delicious noises from her throat, does it again. El’s hips stutter and shake, and then pause for one blinding moment, and they both catch a breath and hold it—
She breaks with a broken moan of Max’s name, clutching at her so hard there will probably be marks in the morning, but Max doesn’t care, can only lean back and stare, in disbelief that she’s allowed to witness this—
“You’re so gorgeous,” Max whispers, and her heart catches in her chest when El’s eyelashes flutter and she leans into Max’s palm, heat radiating from her cheek.
Max brings her down slowly, fingers caressing in lazy circles, until she can roll over next to her and tuck her under her chin. El wraps her arms around her, tugging her impossibly close as she mouths at Max’s collarbones. They lie quietly for a while, a pleasant glow settling over them, and Max hides her smile in El’s messy hair.
After a while, El extricates herself, just enough to bend down and press a wet kiss to Max’s breast. Max jolts and El does it again and again, biting gentle circles around her nipple, until Max is writhing in her arms. “You don’t have to,” she murmurs, brushing sweaty bangs from El’s forehead, and the girl cranes her head back to meet her eyes.
“I really want to,” she says earnestly, eyes huge and pleading. “Do you not want—?”
“I do,” Max says quickly. “But only if you want.”
“Max,” El breathes. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about. I want to make you feel like that. Please, can I?”
Max’s capacity for intelligible speech seems to have suddenly abandoned her, so she settles for nodding dumbly and holds on tight. El seems determined to settle in and take her time, pressing Max firmly into the mattress as she covers her chest and shoulders in kisses. She makes her way down one arm, lingering on her wrist and hand, and Max gives up on staying quiet. She lets El pull all manner of sounds from her as her entire body is painted by her mouth—God, she’s never felt anything like this before.
Minutes—hours?—later, El returns to her mouth. Max opens her eyes to find her girlfriend flushed a deep red, her eyes bright and hair a wild tangle, looking more alive than Max has ever seen.
“Do you like that, baby?” El whispers hotly, and Max had never really understood the appeal of pet names before, but now—God, hearing El call her baby as her fingertips dip shyly below Max’s waistband might just send her over the edge before El’s even touched her.
“Yes,” she whimpers, beyond caring how needy she sounds. “Please. Touch me.”
El doesn’t make her wait; she tugs Max’s underwear down her legs, discards them carelessly from the bed, and strokes over her hips and thighs with nothing short of reverence. She bends down, takes a nipple into her mouth, nudges Max’s thighs apart…and then, finally, her fingers lands between her legs.
Max’s whole body arches into the touch, every muscle going taut. El’s fingers stroke through her so gently, eyes fixed on Max’s face, free hand rubbing teasing circles around her nipple. Max grits her teeth to stifle a cry, presses a wrist over her mouth, but El drags her hand away. “Don’t,” she pleads. “I want to hear the sounds you make for me.”
“Fuck,” Max groans, grinding against El’s fingers. “Okay. Fuck, El.”
“Let me hear you,” El begs again, and Max gasps when fingers suddenly circle around her entrance, asking.
“Please,” she manages. “I want you.”
And then El is slipping inside of her—just one finger up the knuckle and then she stills, lets her head drop to Max’s chest, while they each adjust to the almost overwhelming intimacy. Finally, she begins to move, and Max can’t help the moan that falls from her lips as El eases out and then all the way back in. “Does that feel good?” El asks, her voice strangled and breathless, and all Max can do is pull her closer and allow her thighs to part, offering herself.
“Max,” El breathes, her voice raspy and deep. “You feel so good. So good for me.”
Max almost sobs, clinging to El like a lifeboat and melding their mouths together, desperate to be closer. El adds a second finger, pressing Max down into the bed and thrusting her own hips behind her hand. Max feels feverish with desire for her, and wraps her thighs around El’s hips, surrendering completely to the young woman in her arms. She can feel her orgasm building already in the tips of her toes, sparks of pleasure erupting throughout her body. “El, I—”
“Are you going to come for me?” El’s voice is rough and excited, and her words yank Max instantly to the edge, where she teeters, heel digging into the mattress as El’s fingers quicken. “Max, please, come for me, I want to feel it, you feel so good—”
With a cry, Max falls, slowly and then all at once, white-hot pleasure streaking through her body as El fucks her through her orgasm. Every atom in her body contracts, and she’s suspended for seemingly endless moments, El’s perfect fingers curling deliciously inside of her. Her eyes fly open to find El red-faced and gazing down in awe, her mouth hanging slightly open as she fights to catch her breath.
“El, baby,” Max whispers. “Come here.”
El darts forward at once for a kiss, fingers still thrusting lazily, and Max trembles. Her bones are jelly, muscles useless, and all she can do is melt into the mattress and accept the two fingers that are already quickening again, somehow curling even deeper inside. She moans and her legs fall fully open, giving herself over to El and her beautiful fingers—God, how is she doing that?
“Max, baby, you look so beautiful,” El chokes out, adding more force behind her thrusts. “You’re mine, all mine…”
El fucks her relentlessly, an edge of roughness creeping in, and Max is so wet that El’s fingers slip and plunge in and out of her embarrassingly easily. El reaches down to pin one thigh down to the bed, spreading her impossibly wider, and grinds the heel of her palm firmly into Max’s clit. Max yelps and claws at her back, needing more—
El reaches down to hike Max’s thighs back around her waist, snapping her hips rapidly into Max’s and fucking her down into the mattress. She’s reaching so deep inside, curling and twisting with each bruising thrust, and Max has long since relinquished any semblance of control, more than willing to accept whatever her girlfriend will give.
“Max…God, you feel so good around my fingers,” El whimpers. “Love fucking you like this—I’m—fuck.”
It’s the sound of El cursing, which is so unlike her—the way the word falls thickly from her mouth—that yanks Max over the edge a second time. Her eyes squeeze closed, and she cries out El’s name over and over, white spots exploding behind her eyelids. El follows soon after, painting Max’s thigh as she comes, panting sweet nothings into Max’s ear.
Finally spent, El collapses beside Max, cuddling into her side, each of them feeling the need to be close. Max doesn’t speak, just presses an out-of-breath kiss to El’s head, tucks the soft brown hair behind her ears, and follows her into sleep—dreamless at last.