It was extraordinary to watch. Ellie had spent seven years being the recipient of Becca's attention, and she knew how overwhelming it could be, how Becca could make you feel like you were the only person in the world when she focused on you. Watching her do that to someone else, seeing Kelly respond toit, watching Kelly's body language open up, watching her lean in closer, touching Becca's hand, then her arm, a hand on Becca’s lower back that she let linger, it was like watching a master at work and feeling simultaneously proud, terrified, and turned on beyond all reason.
Ellie sipped her drink and watched. She felt both necklaces against her throat and tried to memorise every detail of what she was seeing because she knew, with a certainty that went beyond logic, that this night was going to be one she'd remember forever.
After about twenty minutes, Becca glanced over at Ellie. Not the reassuring glance from weeks ago, thedon't worry, I'm yourslook. This was different. This was a look that asked a question and made a statement at the same time, Becca's eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, and her expression carrying a mix of arousal and vulnerability that told Ellie all she needed to know: this was going somewhere, and fast.
Ellie nodded. She didn't know what exactly she was nodding to, but she nodded, trusting in Becca’s judgment, and Becca smiled, a quick, private, radiant smile, before turning back to Kelly.
A moment later, Kelly took Becca's hand and they started moving towards the indoor dance floor.
Ellie finished her drink, put the glass down on the bar, and followed.
Chapter 6
The dance floor was darker than the rest of the bar, the lighting dropped to almost nothing except for the occasional wash of colour from overhead rigs that swept across the crowd in slow, lazy arcs. The music was heavier in here, a deep electronic pulse that Ellie could feel in her bones, and the air was warmer, thicker, dense with bodies and perfume and sweat.
Ellie found a spot near the wall where she could see without being in the way, leaning against a pillar with her arms folded across her chest, trying to look like someone who was just watching the crowd and not like someone whose entire nervous system was on fire.
She found them quickly. Becca and Kelly were maybe fifteen feet away, already dancing, and the sight of them together hit Ellie hard, harder than she’d anticipated even after weeks of fantasising about exactly this.
They looked good together. That was the first thing, the most basic thing, and it was absolutely undeniable. Two beautiful women moving to the music, finding a natural rhythm with each other that spoke to the chemistry she’d noticed before. Kelly danced with confidence, nothing too showy, just a natural comfort with how her body moved that drew Ellie's eye. Becca matched her energy, the two of them mirroring each other without seeming to try.
And the eye contact… God, the eye contact. Ellie may as well have been sat at home watching them on TV for all that she figured in their world right then, in fact the whole dance floor might as well have been somewhere else. Their eyes were locked on each other, intense, and Ellie could see the hint of a smile on both women’s faces. Nothing else existed, and seeing Becca desired like that, seeing Becca desire someone else like that too, it did something very, very carnal to Ellie.
The gap between them was closing. Ellie watched it happen in increments… a step closer, a hand on a hip, bodies nearly touching, then touching, then Becca turning so that her back was to Kelly and Kelly's hands settling on her waist, pulling her gently backwards until there was no gap at all.
Ellie's mouth went dry. She was watching her wife dance with another woman, pressed together, Kelly's hands on Becca's hips and Becca leaning back into her, her head turned to say something that made Kelly grin, and it looked like something out of every fantasy they'd shared in the dark of their bedroom except it was real, it was happening, it was fifteen feet away from her in a bar in East Austin.
Becca turned around to face Kelly again and they were close now, inches apart, Becca's hands resting on Kelly's shoulders,Kelly's hands still on Becca's waist. They were looking at each other with an intensity that made Ellie feel like she was intruding on something private, even though this was happening in a room full of people, even though she was supposed to be watching, even though Becca had handed her the necklace and walked into this with Ellie's explicit agreement and encouragement.
The kiss, when it came, was gentle.
That surprised Ellie. In her fantasies, in Becca's narrations, the kiss was always hungry, desperate, two mouths colliding. In reality it was almost tentative… Kelly leaned in slowly, giving Becca every chance to pull back, pausing for several seconds just in case, and Becca didn't pull back. She met Kelly halfway, and their lips touched, and it looked soft, almost hesitant, and then it deepened and Becca's hand moved from Kelly's shoulder to the back of her neck, and Kelly pulled Becca closer by the waist, and Ellie forgot how to breathe.
Her wife was kissing another woman.
Her wife… her Becca, the woman she'd been with since they were eighteen, the woman she'd married, the woman she fell asleep next to every night… was kissing someone else, and it wasn't a performance for Ellie's benefit, it was genuine and mutual, not to mention getting more intense by the second. Ellie could see Becca's fingers in Kelly's hair, could see Kelly's hand slide from Becca's hip to the small of her back, pulling her in, and the kiss went from tentative to deep and from deep to the kind of kiss that makes the people around you either look away or stare.
Ellie stared.
The jealousy hit her in a rush, sharp and breathless, and right behind it, so close it was almost simultaneous, the arousal… equally sharp, equally breathless, swallowing the jealousy whole the way it always did when they fantasised, consuming it and transforming it into something that felt like a desperate, pure, physical, aching need.
They kissed for a long time. Long enough that the song changed twice. Long enough that Ellie's legs started to feel weak and she pressed harder against the pillar to stay upright. Long enough that when they finally broke apart, Becca's lips looked swollen, and her chest was rising and falling fast, and Kelly was looking at her with an expression that Ellie could only describe as lustful hunger.
They danced some more, but differently now. There was absolutely no pretence that this was casual anymore. Kelly's thigh was between Becca's legs at one point, the two of them grinding slowly against each other, and Becca’s head dropped to Kelly's shoulder and Ellie saw her mouth moving, saying something into Kelly's ear that made Kelly's grip on her tighten.
Then Kelly took Becca's hand and led her off the dance floor, Becca going with her willingly without even a glance towards Ellie who realised that that was what handing over the necklace had meant:while I’m not wearing this I’m hers, not yours.
Ellie followed, her heart slamming against her ribcage, weaving through bodies, keeping them in sight. They were heading toward the far corner of the indoor space, away from the bar and the dance floor, where the lighting was dimmest and a row of deep booths lined the wall, most of them occupied but one, the furthest back, the darkest, empty.
Kelly slipped into the booth and Becca followed after her on the same side of the table. Before Ellie could even find a vantage point they were kissing again, passionately this time, Kelly's hand on Becca's face, Becca's hand on the bare skin of Kelly's thigh.
Ellie found a spot against the wall, close enough to see but not right in their line of sight because of the angle and the darkness. Her hands were shaking. Both necklaces felt heavy against her skin, as if they were carrying the weight of whatever the hell this was that was happening.
In the booth, things were escalating fast. Kelly had moved her mouth to Becca's neck and Becca's head was tilted back, her eyes half-closed, her lips parted in an expression that Ellie had seen a thousand times in their bedroom but never like this, never caused by someone else, and the sight of it was so intensely erotic that Ellie felt a throb of arousal between her own legs that almost hurt.
She glanced around, worrying suddenly that they might get seen, that security might throw them out, but she needn’t have worried. Two of the other booths were taken up by people in similarly passionate embraces, and the staff were nowhere to be seen. She wondered, in a moment of clarity, whether they generally turned a blind eye to what went on back here, before she returned her focus to Becca and Kelly.
Kelly's hand moved from Becca's face lower, to Becca's white top, and Ellie could see her fingers moving over the fabric, tracing down to Becca’s breasts. Becca gasped, Ellie couldn't hear it over the music but she could see it, the sharp intake, the way her body pushed toward Kelly's touch, and then Becca's own hand on Kelly's thigh started sliding upward.
