The Safekeep(43)
“Yes?” Isabel asked, and Eva nodded, managed a weak “Yes, yeah, ah—”; clutched at Isabel’s hair, pulled herself closer, pulled Isabel into her. Isabel held her by the meat of her ass, the back-and-forth, and they swayed, and they moved, and they fell back into the bed. Isabel’s fingers slipped from her and Eva said, “Ah, come—come here, fuck, come here—”
Isabel’s limbs didn’t move like they were supposed to, everything slow and syrupy. Eva under her, the sleeping shorts pushed down and then caught around one ankle. Isabel was back inside her. Faster now. Her hair was a curtain around them, strands stuck to her face, the sweat. Eva pushed it away, held her face like that. Isabel had once walked in on Louis fucking a girl in his bedroom. Isabel was fourteen at the time, and had never imagined any human movement to go with the word fucking—hadn’t imagined it much at all, other than the sickening flush at the idea, at the thought. And then she had a flash, just a flash—some girl’s thigh from under her dress, her hands dug into the short crop of Louis’s hair, the rolling of her hips and his bare backside.
It had only been a second, and then she had fled. Spent the rest of the afternoon digging a hole in the garden with a stick. The image had stayed with her for years. Whenever anyone said the word fuck, that’s what she saw: earth overturned. She had hated the word. She had hated how it made her feel like looking away.
She didn’t look away now, Eva’s knee up, her foot pressed under the clothed underside of Isabel’s buttock. She allowed herself to think it: fucking her. Her fingers deep, buried. I’m fucking her. She was pushed up on one elbow, looking down at Eva; the high blotch on her neck, her chest, the shape of her breasts under the shiny cloth—full, spilled to the side. The dark, shadowy space where they were joined, where Isabel pressed in and in and in. Eva’s mouth was swollen. There was another reddening mark at the base of her throat. Eva opened her eyes, found she was being watched, tried to turn from it—then turned back to it, unfocused, hazy-eyed. She let go of Isabel’s hair, found the waist of Isabel’s trousers and pulled at her, the hem of her blouse from where it was tucked, pulled at her waist some more. She wedged a leg between Isabel’s legs, pushed it up. And then they were moving. And then they were a twisted shape, both of them, Isabel riding her thigh, fucking her, a frazzled rhythm, and Eva began to talk. Said yes, and ah, and that’s good that’s so good that’s—
Her fingers were twisted in the belt loops of Isabel’s trousers, leverage, and that’s how she came. An arching, a sob, a gushing around Isabel’s fingers. Isabel did not want it to stop. She did not let up, circled and circled her thumb, until Eva had to push her away—had to take her by the wrist and say, “Ah—shh, no, ah—”
Isabel acquiesced. Her arm trembled where she kept herself up. Eva’s thigh was still between her legs, where she was heaviest; where she was swollen and soaked and would die if Eva touched her there. She was sure she would die if Eva touched her there.
She did not die. Eva got her to lie down, got her to open her trousers with shaky hands, fingers clumsy on the zip. She lay next to Isabel, on her side, propped on an elbow. She stroked Isabel’s stomach, only her stomach, a sugared slowness to her now that she had come. Isabel could barely stand it, could barely stand the ease. The inching hand. Eva spoke to her in small words, sweet things. “You looked so lovely tonight,” she said. “God, you don’t—know how—” She pushed aside the fly of the trousers, slipped her hand in, over Isabel’s underwear. The fabric slipped, drenched. Isabel shuddered, full-bodied, a nervous gasp. She clutched at the sheets for something to hold. Eva said, “Fuck.” Said, “No one’s touched you like this before? Look at me. Look at me, sweetheart. Let me see your face, I want—to see when you like it, I want to see—”
The discovery was that Isabel could not keep quiet. She had done as much for all her life, in her bedroom, underwear bunched, corner of a pillow stuffed into her mouth. Not a peep from her, perfunctory and quick. She did not manage as much now. She could not keep quiet. She could not. The sounds pulled from her, loud under the room’s slanted ceiling; loud in the night, loud in how empty the house was. Eva’s fingers were slow on her, sliding round where she wanted them—around, around, never quite there. She kissed Isabel, trying to quiet her. She said, “Shh, let me, shh,” and then never picked up speed, never pressed, never pushed. Isabel pulled at cloth and it ripped. Eva laughed, softly, against her mouth.
Isabel groaned—grabbed Eva’s hand, pushed it where she wanted it. She rose up into Eva, kissed her hard, pulled her close. Bit: her neck, her chest. Eva said, “Oh, I—” and tilted to it, arched to it. Isabel fit her mouth around a breast, over fabric, sucked at it. She clutched at Eva, the give of fat over bones, over hips. She wanted to hold all of her at once and couldn’t. Wanted to have bigger hands, wanted to envelop, wanted to cover her, contain her—scooping water out of a sinking boat.
She flipped them over. She got on top. She asked with a small touch to the hem of Eva’s top—and Eva said “Yes yes yes—” and Eva took it off. She was naked now. Naked under Isabel. Sand-rolled skin, a freckled stretch that was the darkest at her shoulders. At the dip of her sternum, the farthest the sun could reach. The scar, up her side, a pale-taut line; an old thing, a healed thing. Isabel traced it with a thumb. Eva’s stomach quivered. Her eyes were closed. The skin of the breast that Isabel had taken into her mouth was reddish now. A light brown nipple. A light brown areola. Two freckles there, too. Isabel’s chest went tight at the sight of it: those two freckles, dotting the hidden bow of a breast. So small they were. So unnoticed. She kissed them, and kissed them, and pressed her face into as much skin as she could find. Papery and soft and weathered in places—elbows and knuckles. Skin. All of her skin.