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The kettle had been just over halfway to boiling when Pearl’s text came through, and was whistling steam by the time Rose could calm her laughter over the phone.

She looks halfway freezerburnt in the pic she had sent: Pearl, already layered in the muss of a long day and the sweat of dance practice, red-nosed and miserable and bundled up to her chin with the snow-caked doors of the rec center behind her. A sign in one of them reads “NO WATER -- PIPES BURST”

The caption, though, is the clincher: “My dorm’s plumbing is out, too. I hate to ask, but would it be okay if I showered at yours?”

First of all, that picture was going to be Rose’s new home screen. But the real punchline, here -- which she tried to articulate to Pearl over the phone, through her doubled-over gigglefit -- is that Pearl would think twice about asking to come over. That she would 'hate to ask'! She’s been doing so for months. And with all other possible showers on the opposite end of campus, and Rose’s apartment hardly a couple blocks from the rec center, it just hits her as a uniquely Pearlish blend of pitiful-funny that she would even feel the need to ask permission.

To use her shower, especially. (Well. She left that a bit more implicit, over the phone.)

Rose grins to herself, still, watching the tea steep. She isn’t exactly dolled up -- it’s a healthy piece of late in the evening, and she had just planned to read until bed -- but Pearl has a way of shyly eyeing Rose in even her most kickaround outfits.

(Gold-good things flutter in her chest, there. Sweeten soft.)

Instead of changing, she’s piled a stack of towels and her bathrobe next to the door -- a couple mugs of hot, cheery chamomile on the coffee table, too. So when the door sounds off with a tangle of tender knocks (oh, oh, her knuckles must be numb), Rose is quick to whisk it open with one towel over her shoulder, making little effort to hide the bubble of laughter in her voice: “Poor thing, oh no! Come on, come on -- oof, goodness, it is cold out --”

Hopefully her smile doesn’t look too pleased.

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Pearl turns her head to one side, pressing her cheek against the tile as Rose spreads her legs. It's the smallest escape afforded her, trapped as she is. Her hands fell off her head sometime in the past few minutes; they're balled up in twitching fists on the floor now, and she knows better than to raise them. Except for the sobbing breaths that heave her chest, she keeps perfectly still: deer frozen in the lion's gaze. Rose's eyes, raking over every inch of her exposed body, could scorch her skin like a brand.

For some reason it's the foot against her that does the trick. It's utterly degrading. Toes digging into the most sensitive and tender areas of her body as she cowers in the corner. The thrill of pleasure that the touch sends through her, even for what it is, even now. Rose's voice pitched to its most devastating register, so cutting in its disappointment and contempt--

Her jaw trembles as she tries to hold back the tears.

She’s so warm. And silky, and succulent, and full enough to ache, and so warm -- Rose wouldn’t be shocked if she could feel her heartbeat.

Might have, too, if Pearl wasn’t doing so much twitching and jerking underfoot. So squirmy. So sweet. It’s not something they’ve tried yet, but sometimes instinct strikes, and when it does it never fails to reward Rose with a warm puddle of girl: garden-soft sounds at the shock of learning something so new about herself.

Moments like those?: Rose plucks off the shelf when alone. Good enough to make her toes curl.

“I have to wonder,” soft and sweet as cream and venom, “what goes through such a pretty head --” She rolls her heel a little harder, a little harsher, though Pearl’s pleased little noises sound different -- “-- when you decide to be such a bad girl --”

Then she sees the tears.

Her heart gums the bottom of her throat. Freezes.

Pearl’s cried a few times, before. Usually from coming too hard, or from sheer overload, but… but Rose doesn’t think that the case, this time. She didn’t safeword, but...

It’s important not to panic. Not to be too loud, or shocked -- that could upset her more. So Rose is gentle, pulling her foot away; she’s cautious, bending to read Pearl’s expression.

“Oh, sweetheart -- oh.” Rose’s voice is a whole different paradigm: careful, cupping, wrapping warm as cashmere. She hunkers down to Pearl’s level -- careful not to lose her balance -- and studies her face a moment. Reaches, too: lets fingertips graze over her cheek. “Am I playing too rough?”

Pearl still can't look; she shuts her eyes, hot tears welling from under her pale lashes. Her shoulders are shuddering for real, now, a sniffle trembling in her nose. Chest tight and hot, like there's a fist clenched around the fluttering muscle of her heart: a sensation that creeps outwards, colonizes her body, makes her limbs fragile.

This feels -- deep. Deeper than they've gone before, maybe, for all that there's no fancy toys, no wild scenario, just the two of them in the bathroom. And it's terrifying. Like walking an electric tightrope of thrill and pleasure out over an abyss where good and bad feelings no longer have distinction. Her safeword floats into consciousness, slowly, as if from a great distance. It's in the back of her throat: coda, coda, coda. She can say it, quick or stammering, clear or desperate, and dive out the escape hatch. But she waits -- something caught in her throat -- and after a moment the impulse fades. It's Rose. Just Rose, all Rose. The question hangs in the air.

"It's..."

Her voice teeters on the brink of a sob. "C-can you hold me for a second?"

The request unplugs a soft, stinging thickness in Rose's chest. Dizzy greens and spilled things and an ounce of clammy guilt.

She doesn't answer. Not right away. Rose sets the showerhead on the wash bench and -- shifting backwards -- folds her legs underneath herself before settling on the shower floor. Uncaring of the wet.

She sits next to Pearl on the tile, and takes up a shaky hand. Skims her thumb along the wrist: soft.

"Come here, babydoll." Tries to guide Pearl into her generous lap. Dark eyes doleful. "Come on."

Edited 2015-10-28 03:11 (UTC)

Something in Pearl, wound tight and brittle, eases. Of course she knew Rose wasn't really mad -- of course she knew Rose wouldn't, doesn't, really think those things of her. But knowing and feeling aren't the same thing at all, are they? Or so she's learning.

Rose is beckoning her -- is pulling her in -- Pearl's suddenly desperate for as much contact as possible, wanting to be held and surrounded and comforted in soft arms, and she tries her best to crawl into the waiting lap. It's difficult, because the space is so tight and the hard floor is awkward and her legs don't have anywhere to go, but she manages to put her arms about Rose's neck and bury her wet face in a warm shoulder. Her throat works. "I'm sorry," she tries uncertainly. Somehow the words feel so much more heavy than the apologies she was whimpering earlier.

The apology smarts -- for a couple of reasons -- none of which are any fault of Pearl's. Rose winces. Her voice stays easy, though. "Shhhh... none of that." The position is a bit ungainly, but Rose manages to shape herself to Pearl well enough: has her curled halfway in her lap as she burrows into her neck. Rose has her wrapped up just enough that one hand is free to rub circles in her back, and this she does now -- careful as a craftsman. Tacky skin notwithstanding.

Slow, clockwise, slow; stroke of thumb; slow, clockwise, slow.

"You didn't do anything wrong. You did so well, sweetheart." Rose can feel the teartracks, even through her shirt. She drops a kiss in Pearl's damp hair. Hums, a little. "So good."

Edited 2015-10-28 03:45 (UTC)

Pear thinks that the trickle of shower water off her naked skin must be soaking Rose's clothes through, but they're clearly both beyond caring. The thought is detached, distant, and with an effort she lets go of it, focusing instead on being present in her body. Here with Rose. The shaking of her hands slowing. Her rattled breathing smoothing out. Being held, like this -- it's like, well, it's like maybe she doesn't have a ton of descriptors for it. Almost how her body feels when its dancing, a kind of unearned grace. Rose's endearments, her praise, a soothing pour of honey over the raw confusion of her emotions.

This is fine. She was trying her best and maybe it just wasn't right but they're fine: everything's fine.

A shaky sigh brushes Rose's shoulder. "I don't know what...happened?" Muffled, her voice lilts up at the end, almost a question. In case it wasn't clear, she hastens to add, tripping over her own words, "I was having fun."

"That's okay." The warmth of Pearl through her clothing is almost good enough to ache. Rose's obnoxious body taps a reminder in Morse -- Ummm, excuse me? Down here? -- but Rose ignores it. Wholesale. She wants the body curled up over her and still faintly trembling to calm, not coil.

"It's okay, not to know." It feels as though keeping a low, soothing roll of speech is a good move. Steadying. Nuzzling along Pearl's neck (oh: there was her body wash, tart and bracing), Rose drops another careful peck behind her ear. "Sometimes different parts of us want different things... that's okay, too."

If Rose notices her own innuendo, she doesn't have the mind to mention it.

Edited 2015-10-28 05:36 (UTC)

"Okay." Pearl falls silent and just breathes for a little bit. Unexpectedly a quiet warmth blooms in her chest. Startling delight, perhaps just relief, or something inexplicable like joy. To have had all of herself laid bare before Rose: to have survived it. After a moment she squirms, and turns her head to bravely dare a kiss of her own, just above the curve of neckline. The corners of her lips quirk up as she mouths briefly at bare skin.

"I did like it when you..." Oh, she's flushing again, she knows it. "Turned the showerhead on high."

The kiss, small as it is, breaks the tension for Rose. She smiles against it -- sighs, a little.

And can't keep down a chuckle. Making certain that her breath washes warm over the shell of Pearl's ear, she murmurs: "That wasn't high, sweetness."

Tucked close the way she is, Pearl feels clearly the gentle vibration of Rose's laugh as it bubbles up. The little exhale of delight curls against her skin so neat, so easy, and the sensation makes her keenly aware of the fact that she's still naked in Rose's lap.

"I-" She clears her throat, still a little rough from the sudden flood of tears. "I suppose you weren't done demonstrating."

The laugh melts to a candlewaxy hum at Pearl's remark. It's a thoughtful sound. Politely hungry.

"Well." Her hold begins to loosen -- letting Pearl's face pull back into view. The space allows one of Rose's hands to drift from her narrow back to her curl of hip. "I don't mind a tiny break like this," she brushes a kiss over the tip of Pearl's nose -- already beginning to chill, "if you'd like to see a little more."

Rose presses the lean pinch of flesh over Pearl's hip: massage and message both. "What do you think, sweet thing?"

Being face to face like this is almost unbearably intimate. Pearl fights the urge to drop her eyes, feeling herself falling into the look that Rose is giving her. Colour's creeping back up the curve of her cheeks -- stealing over the bridge of her nose. Her own fingers curl against the back of Rose's neck, tracing an erratic pattern.

"Yes, keep going?"

And now she does duck her head.

"...please?"

Oh, thank God, says Rose's body in Morse.

Finishing out the night with cuddles and kisses would be wonderful, of course, but... Rose would have had to excuse herself to another room for a few minutes, first.

"Mmmm... I can deny you nothing, lovely," she wheedles. Airy and joking, but sweet. Dips her head to butt her brow against Pearl's, tender -- trying to lure her eyes higher. "And you are already so, so excited..."

Rose's hand roams a little lower as she speaks: kneading along Pearl's hip. She's on her side, mostly, with legs laced together, and the position lends a gentle slope for Rose's hand to drift along.

"Such a look on you." A light nuzzle to bring her chin up: coaxing Pearl's lips closer. "I can't help but want to draw it out, a little longer."

It would be delicious to have Pearl just straddle her here. Now. Fuck herself into a glowing tremolo on Rose's artful crib of fingers, tile-bruised knees and all: flesh bare and abrading in quiet gasps against Rose's clothes. (Tsk and tut to Pearl, later, about the stains she'd left.)

But Rose folds the image away for another time. Gentle. She needs to be gentle. Softer -- they should start somewhere softer. She can always coax Pearl elsewhere, later on.

"Can't help but want to kiss you for it. Let me kiss you, Pearl?" As Rose lets her mouth play along hers -- just a brush, to begin with -- fingertips settle in the neat little thatch of curls between Pearl's thighs. "... and touch a little, too."

Edited 2015-10-30 03:29 (UTC)

Rose sounds so -- almost desperate, a yearning that lights a hot twinge of sympathy in Pearl. That feeling is one she knows keenly, and seeing it mirrored like this in Rose makes her lightheaded. Her heartbeat thudding back into the urgent drumbeat rhythm of arousal that has had her body strung tight for what seems to have been most of this evening, already.

She tilts her head. "Yes, kiss me," she breathes against Rose's lips, eyelashes lowering. Her hips move in a slow roll against Rose's fingers, question and permission all at once.

The movement pulls Rose from the kiss and warms a buttery giggle from her belly. The sound shivers off the tile of the wall, circling the two of them.

"Eager baby!" The hand weaving itself against Pearl's heat moves to still her movements at the hip, while the arm still bracing Pearl upright strokes along her back. As best as it can, anyway. "I suppose you're restless?"

She pecks: punctuates the touch with a wink. Like they're sharing a secret. "But be still. Still as you can." Her thumb smudges slow down the half-moon of hip before pressing, again: combing a tender course to the softest place on Pearl. "Just let me feel you."

They'll need to move soon. Rose knows that. Already this position is grating on her back and hips. And Pearl's shins are still knocked awkward against the tile -- collecting a small fruitbasket of bruises, likely.

But she can't grudge them a moment of kissing. Soft, rolling touch. Drinking Pearl in through the butterfly-skin of her mouth: whorl of watercolor tongue: tease of jewelry-box teeth: stovetop hum like lovely, cooking things.

"What a gorgeous girl." Fingtertips slip along the plush heat as Rose croons, like a first draft of hypnosis, "You'd like more, wouldn't you?"

"Yes..."

Pearl's hips still. She whimpers with the effort of keeping them so. Ungraceful in the way she's folded up in Rose's lap, but as tense and focused nevertheless, as if she was holding a pose for ballet. With Rose as her only audience. Her audience and her strictest coach, even if the touch and the words are relentlessly soft now.

A small quiver runs through her frame as they kiss. For all that Rose is being gentle, it still overwhelms her like a breaker wave, roaring in her ears. Gorgeous: Rose thinks she's gorgeous: she wants to be that gorgeous pretty girl, that sweet toy. It's like Rose has her soul between her teeth, tugging and pullling, wrung out gently. And that's melodramatic, maybe, but fuck: if Pearl has one thing to be melodramatic about in her tragicomic piecemeal of a daily life, it's this.

"Yes," she says again.

Yes; yes; yes. At its most elegant, seduction isn't much more than a series of carefully timed agreements, and Rose is quite adroit at organizing what Pearl would find agreeable. Wouldn't that be lovely? Aren't you just the sweetest thing? Doesn't that feel nice?

Every "yes" is another tick of gravity to have her sinking into herself, and it might be Rose's favorite sight. Seeing Pearl actually yield to the nerves she wastes so many grating minutes of the day ignoring. So many feelings suppressed. Rose is clueless how a dancer with such a physically gifted body can also be so emotionally constipated about it.

But that fact is flexible. Rose keeps the kiss tender. She lets her lips soothe Pearl with You're safe, safe, while the hand petting between her hips insists You're mine, mine.

Rose also acknowledges that another minute in these clothes might be her last on planet Earth.

Heated, humming, Rose speaks low into the kiss: "I need to move you back, hon. Just fot a minute." (Can't resist a little hard-candy nip.) "Can you do that for me?"

Edited 2015-10-30 19:50 (UTC)

Sometimes Pearl wonders at this hold that Rose has upon her. How does she do it? If Pearl didn't have two feet firmly grounded in a worldview based on Science and Rationality, she'd wonder if Rose had the mythical eye of some goddess of romance fixed upon her. Surely the way those hips move can't be merely human. Who is she, and why? Why would she pick -- Pearl, of all people, to play these games with?

Right now, though, none of these things are on Pearl's mind. Right now she's exactly where she needs to be: fully present.

It takes her a moment to process the question; she gives herself a little shake, as if waking for a trance. A protesting little whimper, nearly inaudible. But then: "Okay." Yes, of course she can; she can do just about anything for Rose. Extricating herself from the lap, she shuffles backwards, knees knocking against wet tile. Face flushed, chest still heaving from the kiss. Her hands fold, uncertainly, on her thighs as she looks to Rose for the next move.

Rose hums approval before shifting onto her own knees -- ooh, ouch. If they end up fooling around in the shower again, Rose will have to make sure it doesn't involve too many more games of this leapfrog business.

"Mmmm..." She edges forward to where Pearl sits, pretty and waiting, and drops a kiss on the tip of her nose. "I'd like us to play a little game, now. One that will feel very nice." One hand wanders to the fold where Pearl's hips meets her thigh, and drifts back a little farther. As she dabbles another pair of kisses along her cheek, Rose's fingertips skim along the curve of Pearl's ass. Maybe they'll find some of that darling heat from earlier.

Her smile is sweet in its symmetry -- but then, so are knives. "Would you like that, sweetness?"

Rose keeps touching her, ghost caress of fingers, warm curve of palm, a butterfly tease of lips, and it's sending her nervous system into overdrive. Pearl's body arches, pushing back into the knowing hand, straining forward towards the irresistable gravity of Rose herself. If only Rose would take her now, even right here on the bathroom floor in a mess of puddles and bruises: Pearl wouldn't mind. Would spread her legs and beg and cry for fingers curling thick and hot in her -- or Rose's mouth, even, if she was feeling really generous--

Pearl licks her lips. Rose knows her answer, surely. "What are the rules?"

Oh, good answer. Rose laughs.

"Careful, now. Too eager, and you'll lose." That sounds sufficiently cryptic. Rose lets her smile dip into a more smug register as she brings her fingers to Pearl's collar and presses, gently -- nestling her back into the corner like before.

"We'll play a little discipline game." Press of lips to Pearl's, drinking her in so gently (safe, safe, safe), while Rose's hand reaches behind her for the showerhead. "See how much self-control my sweet thing has."

Rose takes one of Pearl's hands and brings the showerhead to it: shapes her fingers over Pearl's, to lace her fingers over the handle. Studies her face, too, and tries not to smirk at what she finds there.

In the next moment, she moves from the floor to the wash bench; the looming effect is not subtle. "I'm going to finally step out of these wet clothes." Pearl's hair parts easily for her fingers as she strokes, as she croons. "And you're going to watch me, and get your pretty little pussy nice and clean."

Her fingers rove. Gentle. Dreamy. They bracket the back of Pearl's nape: threat and pet alike.

"If you come," Rose's voice lulls, "you lose. If you look away, you lose. And if you let the showerhead move too far away -- and I'll be watching -- you lose. And if you lose, I'm not going to touch you for a month." Her smile is the cut and crack of lacquer. "Not even if you beg."

(A bluff, of course. But it's important Pearl doesn't pick up on that. Pretty thing is so much more vocal when she's just a little bit nervous.)

Her strokes conclude -- Pearl's hair looks oddly slicked-back now, that's cute -- and Rose tips a loving, petit-four smile down to the girl she wants to have coming in her bed within the hour. Pearl's managed to remember what name to moan each time they've been together, so far. Has yet to come so hard she can't say 'Rose.' Perhaps that can change tonight. "Would you like me to start you off?"

Thank god Pearl’s already crouched in the corner, or her legs would almost certainly have given out from under her. Her head tips back to follow Rose as she rises: collared and leashed and wound tight around the diamond edge of her grin.

The threat is almost unbelievable, but Pearl's brain, fevered with desire, can't help but imagine what it would be like. To be suspended in Rose's orbit, pulled in but held at arm's length, watching her float and flirt her way through every long, long day--

For a month!

Perhaps Rose, instead of touching her, would make her touch herself -- have Pearl run her hands down her own willowy body -- thumb at her nipples -- yearning for Rose's touch but allowed only her own fingers, stroking herself achingly slow, or a vibe against her clit, or this very showerhead--

Perhaps Rose would make her watch as she touched herself, or someone el-- the fantasy threatens to career out of control, and Pearl wrenches herself away, her cheeks burning. Her knuckles around the showerhead are bone white, and not even Rose's gentle hand in her hair can soothe her this time.

Her throat is so, so dry. "Y-yes...please."

"Lovely." Rose's hand curves over Pearl's on the handle, tipping it lower. Lazy. There's just enough room to lean: to bury a kiss against Pearl's brow. When she pulls away again, Rose laps a droplet from the corner of her godless smirk. "Very good."

Pearl's given no other warning before the showerhead clicks on to a low thrumming setting: aimed right over her clit.

"Oh--"

The rest of whatever she might have said gets caught in her throat as she sucks in a frantic breath of air, her whole body jerking taut as a strung wire. Her hand on the showerhead almost involuntarily tries to yank it away; but Rose has her caught, of course, and she can't do anything but take it, stay there under the cascade of hot liquid sensation that curls her toes and coaxes a whimper out of her chest.

And she's supposed to keep doing this, while watching Rose strip?

It's torture. Pure torture.