“To men. You actually… you didn’t try to initiate anything. We just kissed. And you didn’t try to take it further.”
“You’ve never had that before? Kissing in its own right, as opposed to an intro to sex?”
“I mean, probably…” Saskia licked her lips, still looking blown away. “But that was so much better. That was…”
“I know,” Kivi said, and laced her fingers through Saskia’s.
“Can we do that again?”
“You know we can.”
So they returned to it, growing more and more breathless every time they came up for air. Saskia’s body was giving off more heat than the fire pit Kivi had been intending on lighting outside, and Kivi’s wasn’t far off. They only parted when they heard a soft noise that came from within the room with them, and realised that they had a canine audience.
“Oh my God,” Kivi said again, but this time it was because Toto was sticking his happy face between them. His tail was wagging, and beat even harder when both women proceeded to burst out laughing.
“Can you imagine what he’s thinking?” Saskia said between peals of laughter. “I’d just love to know what’s going through his head.‘Uh oh, looks like I have to share my mum’s attention. I must interrupt!’”
“And you thoughtwewere the dorks,” Kivi said, giving Toto’s head a scratch. His eyes closed in pure bliss. While he was occupied, she took the opportunity to look back up at Saskia. Her face was flushed, she was still breathing a little heavily, and she smiled back at Kivi. A real smile, not the polite mask she seemed to don around everybody else. If she was a cat, she’d have been purring.
Toto eventually tired of the attention and went to the door to be let out. When Kivi returned to the sofa, she couldn’t help but wrap her arms around Saskia. The other woman was gradually looking less contented and more confused – and Kivi could hardly blame her. This wasn’t exactly where she’d expected the evening to go.
“So… what does this mean?” Saskia said, mid-hug.
A sudden wave of tension engulfed Kivi’s body. It must have spread to Saskia as well, for her arms locked around her, pressing her ever closer. Kivi didn’t dare try to extricate herself from the hug for fear of breaking a bone or two.
“Um…” She swallowed hard, for her mouth had gone dry. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. If you don’t want it to. We could just put this down as one evening of madness, and part ways, and pretend it never happened.”
“I don’t want to pretend it never happened,” Saskia said, and finally let Kivi go so that they were both able to look at each other’s faces. “Those kisses were more intimate than any of my previous relationships have ever been, cumulatively. I’d be a fool not to want more of that. But… I’m not sure how I identify. Doesn’t that cause a barrier?”
“Why would it?” Kivi said. “All we’ve done is kiss. You don’t have to identify as anything. And you don’t have to have it figured out straight away. You can take as long as you like, and change as many things as you want, until you’re comfortable.”
“It’s blown my mind a bit,” Saskia admitted. “Up until I met you, I’d never considered I could be anythingotherthan straight. But what I feel for you is already so much deeper than what I felt for my previous boyfriends…”
“It sounds to me like you’re thinking of straying into relationship territory,” Kivi said nervously.
“I am.” Saskia sighed. “And it scares the bejesus out of me.” Then her face gained a slightly haunted air. “Oh God. What would my father say?” She stared at Kivi in horror.
“You don’t get on?” Kivi stroked her arm comfortingly.
“Well, no. We got on like a house on fire as I grew up. But that was when I was… the old me. That bigoted prat you thought I still was last night. I was always‘a chip off the old block’to him.”
“Ah.” Kivi grimaced. “Say no more.”
“Leo hasn’t come out to him. Hasn’t needed to.” Saskia pursed her lips. “Having said that, I don’t see why I’d have any reason to do so either.”
“You wouldn’t see us being a long-term thing? If, after further discussion, we did decide to make a go of it?” Kivi was struck by how much that actually hurt.
“What? No! That’s not what I meant. I mean that I rarely speak to my father, much less see him. I’ve not seen him since before the pandemic – so that’s… nearly four years. The scales fell from my eyes, where he is concerned, when I went to him after I got evicted. The start of the pandemic. I called and texted, asking for help, asking if I could move in with him. But he was too far balls-deep in his latest vixen to care.” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “So I suppose I needn’t give a fuck about what he thinks.”
“That’s the spirit,” Kivi said. “But there really is no pressure to come out. You could simply be ‘Kivi’s girlfriend’, if it came to that. And I highly doubt you’d have any problems fighting off any nosey people who inquire as to the exact label of your sexuality.”
“That’s true,” Saskia said, brightening up a little. She actually looked rather excited, presumably at the thought of ripping someone to shreds if they overstepped the boundary. Kivishouldn’t have found that hot, but she did. She kissed Saskia again, and now Saskia kissed her back, feverishly, attacking her almost.
“I would never force you to be my girlfriend.” Kivi broke away and pursed her lips unhappily. “If that’s not what you want. But I think we could be good together.”
“How?” Saskia said. “Long-term? We live three hundred miles apart.”
“That is true. Uh… ever considered relocating?” She laughed, but Saskia’s face remained serious.
