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Lorrie
“Wait. You’re not surprised?”
“You’ve been living at my house all week,” Dante said as he pulled the popcorn out of the microwave. “It would be weird if you weren’t here. I figure that’s Kat in the shower right now, right? Cause she’s the only person I think you’d run off like that to help right now. Other than me, of course. And your family. But because all your family are in another state I figure it’s got be Kat.”
“How are you so smart?” Lorrie asked.
He shrugged. “Just lucky I guess.” He picked up the bowl of popcorn and hopped towards the couch. With each hop popcorn bounced out of the bowl to rain down on the carpet behind him. By the time he’d got to the couch the bowl was empty. He frowned at it in confusion and turned around to see the incriminating trail behind him. “Huh.”
Lorrie stood up. “Sit down. I’ll clean it up and make another batch.”
Dante sank obediently down into the cushions, still holding the bowl and looking at the spilt popcorn as if it personally betrayed him. “I think the head camera man is angry at you for running off today.”
She flinched. “What did he say?”
“He said ‘I’m really angry at Loretta for running off today’.”
“Well, I’d say you read that situation correctly then.”
Dante nodded. “I told him it was an emergency but because you didn’t talk to him I don’t know if he’ll want you back.”
Lorrie let herself feel the weight of that statement. The one job she’d been excited about in years, the one thing where she could see a future for herself, gone. She couldn’t be angry about that. It was her fault. She had left without talking to the director of photography. That was stupid. She’d just been so worried about Kat...
“It’s okay,” she said, even though it wasn’t, and put another packet of popcorn in the microwave. “I’ll figure something out.” While it was cooking she swept up the spilt popcorn and dumped it into the bin. Once the microwave stopped cooking she pulled the new popcorn out, transferred it into a bowl, and smeared it with a liberal amount of butter.
Dante was cycling through channels on the TV when she started towards the couch.
“Careful,” he called.
“I’m not going to drop—”
“Lorrie?”
Lorrie stopped so suddenly she almost did drop the popcorn. Seeing that Dante lurched to his foot and pulled the bowl out of her hands. “I told you to be careful!”
She didn’t care. Her focus was on the door to the bathroom. Kat stood there wrapped in a towel. There were still some blue smudges on her arms and around her nose but she looked mostly normal. Not to mention, gorgeous. Long wet hair tangled around her face and bare shoulders.
“Hey Lorrie’s friend!” Dante waved. “This is my place, but it’s totally okay. You can stay here as long as you like! The sofa is small but all my friends say my floor is super comfortable. Lorrie’s been living on it for a week!”
“Don’t tell her that!”
“Why not?”
“It makes me sound like a moocher!” To Kat. “I’ve been staying here helping him while his foot gets better. You know, as good generous people do.”
“Okay,” Kat said. “I, um, wanted to ask if there was some clothes I could borrow? I accidently wet mine and I don’t want to put the... um... yellow thing on again.”
Ten minutes later Kat was squeezed onto the too small sofa with them in Dante’s shirt which was large enough to look like a dress and track pants that had been rolled up to her ankles. Somehow she looked even sexier like that then she had when she was wrapped in the towel.
They watched an old black and white movie that Lorrie had never heard of but Dante insisted was a classic. He mouthed along to the lines and ruined every twist by sitting up straighter, pointing at the screen, and loudly declaring “you got to watch this bit! This bit is—there! Did you see?” Despite that, it was nice. Fun, friendly, and warm.
Kat never went home. So, without a word, Dante pulled out some spare sheets and dropped them on the floor in the living room. That was where they slept.
Except there wasn’t much sleeping involved.
Instead, when the lights were off and enough time had passed that Lorrie was sure Dante wasn’t listening in through his bedroom door, she spoke, voice low and soft.
“Yes.”
Kat shifted. “Huh?”
“The answer to your question,” Lorrie specified. “It’s yes.”
A pause. “You serious?” Kat whispered. “It was a date?”
“Only if you want it to be.”
“Yes! I... You’re gay? Like me?”
“I prefer the term queer for myself. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is... Kat... you’re so fucking beautiful. If you’re interested in giving us a shot I’ll be there. You have to know that.”
Kat made a small breathless sort of sound. “Nobody’s ever called me beautiful before.”
“Then nobody’s ever told you the truth before.”
“I think you’re beautiful too, Lorrie. From the very first moment I met you I thought that.”
Lorrie huffed out a laugh. “Well. I got to admit I didn’t think you were so beautiful when we first met.”
“Hey! I was a mummified corpse!”
“Yep. A really ugly one. But,” she lowered her voice, “I’m glad you were the mummified corpse that killed me. Truly.”
Kat sighed. “Oh my gosh. Today has been awful. I never would have expected it would end here. I’m so happy.”
She couldn’t resist. “Hi so happy. I’m—”
“No,” Kat’s hand came out of the darkness to clap over Lorrie’s mouth. “Don’t. I’m not going to let you ruin this moment with another stupid joke.”
Lorrie shook off Kat’s hand. “You love my stupid jokes!”
“I do,” Kat said. “But not right now. Please.” Her fingers were still on Lorrie’s cheek. Slowly, gently, they pushed some hair from her face.
Even in the darkness Lorrie could see where this was going. She had no desire to change course. In fact, she wouldn’t mind speeding things along. She reached out, took Kat’s hand, and transferred it to her lips so she could kiss her palm.
Kat made a small sound.
“Was that a ‘yes’?” Lorrie asked.
“More like a ‘hell yes’.”
Lorrie laughed and kissed her again, on the wrist this time, and then her forearm. Her skin was soft, warm, and smelt of Dante’s beeswax soap. Her voice was quiet and wanting. With every kiss Lorrie moved closer until they were lying on their sides, face to face, barely an inch between them.
In the dim light from the window Lorrie could see the contours of her body. The dark spill of hair, the pale pink of her shoulder, the point of her hip. Her face though was buried in darkness. She wasn’t moving.
“Still feeling that ‘hell yes’?” Lorrie asked. “Because it’s okay if you’re not”
“Still feeling it. I just... I’m not very experienced at this.”
“Do you want to stop?”
Kat shook her head. “Please don’t.”
So Lorrie kissed her where she’d wanted to kiss her all this time. Right on her perfect pink lips.
*
Kat
Lorrie was a good kisser. A really good kisser. Not harsh, or aggressive, or fast. Tender. That was the word. Like Kat was something precious that should be treasured, savoured, and adored. There wasn’t even tongue yet. Just soft little kisses on the front and side of her mouth. At one point a hand reached up to gently curl around the side of her neck, pulling her closer.
It was perfect... apart from the fact that Kat was lying there like a log. She should do something. But what? She didn’t know. It was like she was sixteen again, kissing the blue haired girl beneath the stairs at school, or eighteen, lying back having sex with Ruby for the first time. Except both of those experiences had been different. The first had been a garbled mess of tongue and the second a somewhat awkward but instructional encounter, similar only in that they were dictated and controlled by the other person. Kat didn’t want that to happen now. She wanted to be as much her as it was Lorrie.
Slowly, tentatively, she reached out and put a hand on Lorrie’s waist. When that was met with a hum of approval Kat got bolder and raised her head fractionally on the next kiss to get a better angle. Lorrie’s lips parted slightly. She tasted like toothpaste and something deeper and sweeter that Kat couldn’t name. It was rich and wonderful.
The kiss deepened, lengthened.
They kissed until Kat felt dizzy from it, and then they kissed more.
“Kat?” Lorrie whispered when they parted for air.
“Yeah?”
“Is this just kissing we’re doing? Totally fine if it is, but I have to admit I’m getting kinda hot here.”
Something in Kat’s middle squeezed, warm and needy. “We’re on your friend’s floor.”
“Ah huh. Yeah. When you say it like that I realise we can’t do anything... it would be weird... right?”
That question hung unanswered in the air.
Lorrie’s hand was on Kat’s waist, fingers fisted in the baggy fabric of her shirt. Kat’s hand had moved around Lorrie’s body to splay on the small of her back. They were both breathing hard.
“Maybe... it wouldn’t be so bad...” Kat whispered. “If we keep quiet and don’t take off any clothes.”
“Yeah?” Lorrie replied. “You sure?”
“Yeah...”
Their lips reconnected, warm and bone achingly gentle. But there was a newfound urgency there now too. A hunger and heat which until that point had been simmering below the surface but was now coming out. Kat had never felt anything quite like it before. It was dizzying.
Lorrie’s mouth slipped lower and began leaving a trail of kisses on Kat’s neck. Within seconds her lips found a sensitive spot Kat never knew existed, right in the join between shoulder and neck.
“Ah... Ah.”
“You okay?” Lorrie’s breath was hot against her skin.
“Yeah. Sorry I just... that felt really good.”
Lorrie refocused her attention onto Kat’s neck, the softness of her lips quickly giving away to the barest hint of teeth.
Kat squeezed her eyes shut and focused on breathing. It felt incredible. Lorrie wasn’t biting her hard enough to leave a hickey, but she wasn’t being as gentle as when she kissed either. Small sparks of pleasure shot through Kat’s body. Random, intermittent, but powerful. Between her legs the warmth she’d been feeling began to tighten.
She dug her fingers into Lorrie’s hip and pulled her forward. Their bodies crushed together, thigh to groin, groin to thigh.
Lorrie didn’t relent. Her mouth stayed locked on Kat’s neck, hungry and perfect. Dimly Kat wondered if she could come just from this. It seemed crazy, and yet the reality of it was creeping closer with every passing second. The need for release grew until Kat knew it couldn’t be denied. It pulsed inside her, hot, angry, and urgent.
She stifled a moan and thrust her hips forward, thigh sliding between Lorrie’s legs.
Lorrie broke away from her neck with a gasp.
Then they were kissing again. Kat wasn’t sure who had instigated this kiss. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the feel of her lips, the sound of her breath, and the beating of Kat’s own heart, like thunder in her ears.
There was nothing elegant about what they were doing. Kat was clinging to Lorrie, sweating, panting, still somehow fully clothed. Lorrie was doing the same thing to her, sucking in loud breaths of air between kisses. Their hips were moving in tandem, thighs wedged tightly between each other’s legs, the movement rough and needy. Yet somehow, despite all the fabric between them, it was keenly pleasurable too.
Kat could have come just like that. She would have if Lorrie hadn’t spoken.
“Kat... Kat I need—”
“Yeah?” Her voice sounded strange. Husky and broken.
“Can I have your hand?” Lorrie asked.
“I don’t know how...”
“Like this.” Gently, Lorrie took Kat’s hand and guided it down between her legs. She didn’t force Kat to reach into her shorts. That was something Kat did all on her own. She wanted to touch Lorrie, to make her cry out with pleasure. And so her fingers slipped down, into Lorrie’s shorts, past the elastic rim of her underwear. What she found was heat, soft furls of hair and, a little lower, a spreading dampness.
That discovery sent a fresh surge of want coursing through Kat. Lorrie was wet. Wet for her.
“Here,” Lorrie’s fingers settled over Kat’s and steered them to her clit. “Just here.”
She moved rubbed and listened as Lorrie’s breathing broke down. Her body began to shake. Her gasps a little closer to groans. It was the single sexiest thing Kat had ever heard.
“Touch me too,” Kat begged. “Just like this. Please.”
Lorrie obeyed, reaching down into the baggy sweatpants Kat still wore and finding her clit. She circled it with two fingers. Kat had to fight not to cry out. It was acutely pleasurable, almost painfully so. It didn’t take long before the heat inside her was burning, spreading, spilling... Her eyes slammed closed, her hips thrust forward. She was coming, but it was the sharpest most intense orgasm of her life. Magnitudes more powerful than anything she’d ever achieved before. She opened her mouth to cry out but her voice was gone.
Lorrie said something, Kat didn’t know what, but then she was holding Kat’s hand hard against her, thrusting, and panting into her ear.
She was coming too, Kat realised. They were coming together.
It was amazing, it was beautiful, it was more than Kat ever thought sex could be. The aftershocks were still rolling through her minutes later as she clung to Lorrie, sucking in air like she’d been saved from drowning. But the best part was Lorrie was right there with her, arms wrapped around Kat, breath loud in her ear.
“Wow,” Lorrie finally said.
Kat coughed out a laugh. “Yeah. Wow.”
“I think I need a shower. Wanna join?”
“Won’t that wake, Dante?”
“He’s a deep sleeper.”
Kat considered what they’d just been doing and hoped that was true. They hadn’t been loud, but the walls here were thin.
She went to the shower with Lorrie which turned out to be a great decision because it meant she got to see Lorrie naked for the first time. She was gorgeous. Short, round, with large breasts and a perfect heart shaped arse. When wet her skin glistened a rich warm brown and her bleached blonde hair turned gold. Kat knew she was staring but she couldn’t help it.
“How are we going on that ‘hell yeah?’” Lorrie asked pushing some hair from her face.
“I think we’re a bit beyond it now.”
“Oh really?” She smiled. “Where are we now?”
Kat considered. “I’d say we’re somewhere near ‘Oh my fucking god, yes, so much yes, please let’s never stop doing that, yes yes yes.’”
Lorrie’s eyebrows arched and her grin turned cheeky. “Well. In that case...”
*
Shower sex was not like Kat imagined it would be.
For one thing, it wasn’t slow and steamy. It was more along the lines of fast and fumbling. But that didn’t stop it from being utterly amazing.
Afterwards they towelled off, kissed some more, and finally passed out on the living room floor, boneless and tangled in each other’s limbs. When Kat woke the sun was peeking through the blinds and Dante was sitting on the sofa, munching through a bowl of cereal while he watched cartoons on silent with subtitles.
Kat sat up slowly and looked around for Lorrie.
“She’s at the shops,” Dante said without looking away from the screen. “She went to get milk. Don’t know why. Cereal with juice is better anyway. Twice the sugar, twice as good for you.”
She eyed the bowl in his hands with some alarm but didn’t comment.
The truth was she was more than a little intimidated. When she saw Dante last night she’d been with Lorrie and hadn’t had time to think about the fact that he was the Pharaoh. Aka, the boss monster in the mummy horror movie. That meant he was a better and more accomplished actor than she would probably ever be.
“You okay?” He asked.
She realised she’d been sitting on the floor without saying a word. “Yeah,” she croaked. “Um. Thanks for letting me sleep here.”
“Hey. No worries. Any friend of Lorrie’s is a friend of mine. Besides, you had a shit day yesterday.”
Surprise and embarrassment stirred in her gut. “Lorrie told you about that?”
“Nope,” he popped the p. “She wouldn’t say anything that wasn’t her business to say. But it was pretty obvious something went down.” He shoved a heap of juice soaked cereal into his mouth. “Hope everything’s okay.”
“Yeah. I think it is. I just did a stupid thing. Trusted someone I shouldn’t have.”
“That sucks. But hey,” he turned to face her over the back of the sofa, face serious. “That reminds me, I need to talk to you.”
She poked herself in the chest. “Me?”
“Yeah. You. We never really got the chance last night. But there is something I want to tell you. Something I don’t want Lorrie to hear.”
A sting on nervousness shot through Kat.
If his expression was anything to go by, Dante was feeling it too. “I... eh... okay. I’m just going to say it. Lorrie gave up a big opportunity to run off and rescue you yesterday. Like... a big opportunity. And, sure, she might get another shot. But, on the other hand, she might not.”
Kat stared at him in horror. “I... I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I should never have called.”
“No. That’s not what I wanted you to think. I don’t know what the situation was but you were in trouble, you did the right thing calling for help. I just...” he took a deep breath. “Okay. Here goes. For real. She likes you, Kat. Like... a lot. I know you’ve only known each other for a few days, but she was so upset when she thought you’d ghosted her. Like, she tried not to show it, but I could tell. Then, when you called, she ran off to save you without a second thought. I just want to make sure you feel the same way. Because she’s my best friend and I don’t want her giving up opportunities for someone who isn’t really serious about her. That’s all.”
It struck Kat in that moment that she had never had a friendship like Lorrie and Dante had. Even her best friend from school hadn’t been too close to her as Dante clearly was to Lorrie. That should have made her jealous... but it didn’t.
“I do care about her,” Kat said quietly. “A lot, actually. I know we barely know each other but I think she’s incredible. Beautiful, smart, funny—”
“You think she’s funny?” Dante asked, crinkling his nose. “Really?”
“Are you kidding? She’s hilarious. Maybe it’s too soon to say anything like this, but I hope we can be together. I hope...” she trailed off.
Dante was smiling at her, his eyes warm. “That’s all I needed to hear.”