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Electric blue lights pulse, and Lily closes her eyes against the onslaught. She leans against the bar, the lip biting into her lower back. Inhaling, her nose fills with the heady, sharp scent of sweat, underlined by the sweetness of syrup and the huskiness of smoke. Her fingers loosen around her glass. Lily imagines it shattering and the subsequent embarrassment flushing her skin hot: light pink, deep pink, red, dark red, the almost brown of pooling blood.
Blinking, she returns to the undulating lights around the pool and the stinging, acidic smell of chlorine. The water was heated warm like a freshly drawn bath. Goosebumps pimpled along her arms, and she kicked her feet gently. The pool noodle kept her afloat.
When Amanda popped up, her eyelashes curled long and dark. Droplets stuck to them, shimmering, alluring. Amanda had insisted she remained underwater for 30 seconds, and Lily was almost entirely sure that was untrue. Did lack of feeling correlate to objective fact? Did it steady Amanda’s counting, turning her brain into an unimpeachable metronome? Doubtful. Lily remembered how much she had struggled with her multiplication tables.
But arguing with Amanda was like arguing with a wall, so Lily plunged underwater. Winning was what she wanted. It was what everyone wanted, even and especially Amanda. Opening her eyes, the water was bright and hazy. Despite the submersion, Lily’s limbs felt like they were floating. The pressure in her lungs expanded and tightened. Her vision spotted.
Death came to Lily softly, tenderly, as though a familiar hand was reaching out and inviting her in. She wanted it cruelly. She envisioned her mother crying ugly, gasping sounds, clawing at Mark’s arms and leaving angry red scars along his veins. She presupposed her mother blaming herself for her daughter’s death, blaming Mark. Two lives ruined because they had tried to ruin hers.
Her own life spread out before her, sunny and supple. She deserved everything. She wanted it.
Lily inhaled. All chlorinated water and lack of oxygen.
She choked.
Death grabbed her around the stomach and hauled her up without care or the lack of it. Sputtering, thrashing, winning, Lily found Amanda watching her blankly. A divot formed between Amanda’s eyebrows, approximating concern. In their youth, Lily would have taken it as such, but now she knew it was mere curiosity. Amanda’s lack of worry for her life scraped, and Lily clamped down on the instinct to preen under her watchful gaze. It was no good to be marveled at as an oddity, even if there was something tempting about being interesting. It would not have been unwanted for Lily to have been the most interesting person in the world.
“You won,” Amanda said.
Lily coughed. Her chest ached and her limbs leadened. Something bright and slick squirmed in her gut and beat between her legs. Amanda blinked slowly, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.
“I know,” Lily managed; her voice sounded hoarse and hollow. She winced, kicking herself to the edge of the pool and gathering all her strength to pull her body out.
Lying on the concrete, breathing heavily, Lily’s eyes slipped shut. She heard the swoosh of Amanda moving in the pool, perhaps swimming laps, perhaps treading water. Exhaustion warred with an alert awareness of Amanda’s presence. It pricked all over Lily’s body, a writhing, alive thing burrowing in.
She felt Amanda’s gaze before opening her eyes; Amanda swam in her vision, purple and shadowed like a bruise. “What?” Lily asked, a defensive edge to the question.
Amanda shrugged. “You’re red.”
Trying to make the gesture look natural, Lily brushed her fingertips along her cheekbones. “I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Amanda said. “I didn’t say you weren’t.”
Lily rolled her eyes.
“Your breathing is irregular.”
Lily felt her breath hitch, then. It rushed in her ears. It was as though she had run up and down a bunch of stairs and didn't want the effort to show. Embarrassingly out of shape. Amanda’s gaze felt sharp but good, little needles sliding beneath her skin.
“You did almost drown,” Amanda added.
Lily scrambled up on her elbows. “Did not.”
“It’s no big deal.” An insane statement. “You just wanted to win, and you did. I wouldn’t have let you drown.”
Lily glared as she gathered her hair over one shoulder and twisted, squeezing out a river of water. “You take life, and you giveth.”
Amanda tilted her head, considering. “I wouldn’t really put it that way.”
“I was kidding,” Lily scoffed.
“I see your point, though.”
“Sure.” Lily vibrated like a hide stretched out across a drum, and Amanda reached over, cradling Lily’s elbow in her palm. Feeling welled up in Lily, an all-consuming wave that threatened to beat her into oblivion. Too much, all the time, allowed now that she could still feel the phantom waves sloshing around her lungs.
Folding herself into Amanda, Lily remembered her father’s funeral. But Amanda wasn’t crying now. The cradle of her arms was comforting, as though she was a cloth monkey posing as mother. Lily inhaled, and Amanda smelled like chlorine and salt and sweat. It made Lily’s mouth water and ignited between her legs.
She thought that something must be wrong with her. She heard Amanda’s monotone, “It’s okay,” and didn’t know if it was an eerie echo or if Amanda had decided to try on useless platitudes. There was something wrong with her, and it was not her fault: her father was dead, and her step-father was an asshole intent on destroying her life.
Amanda pressed her nose, mouth, against Lily’s wet hair.
“What are you doing?” Lily pulled away, a jolt followed by slow disentanglement.
“Sorry,” Amanda said. She tilted her head, and her eyes were blown and bright, searchlights in the shadows. “I thought it might be nice.”
Something was wrong with Amanda, too. It bubbled beneath Lily’s skin, hot and vicious. It was something worse than what was wrong with Lily. Amanda won this one, or maybe Lily won. Ugly, Mark thought. An ugliness inside her.
Amanda tongued at her bottom lip. Her chest rose and fell. Lily wanted the ugliness for herself, or she wanted to strangle it, make it heel. Hesitantly, she splayed her hand across Amanda’s sternum. She pressed her thumb against the dip between collarbones.
“That hurts,” Amanda said.
“I’m sorry.” Lily shook her head. “I don’t know why I–”
“I liked it.”
Lily’s mouth dried, and it hurt to swallow. Heat rose in her face. It burned. She burned, and to quench her thirst and smother the fire she dug her thumb into the base of Amanda’s throat. Amanda’s jaw clenched, her eyes fell half-closed, and her breath heavied. Then, her eyes went wide, a deep black abyss of feeling, and her mouth opened, small and pink and oval. She was beautiful.
Lily’s heart hammered, desire curling around her ribs, vining up her lungs and threatening to choke her. Amanda’s hand gripped her elbow, tight with fear, nails jagged as though she’d been biting them. Lily released her, keeping her palm pressed against Amanda’s tacky skin. Her brain caught on the millionth apology she wouldn’t mean. Slick between her legs and breathing labored, Lily felt like a god.
Amanda leaned forward and kissed her weakly. Lily froze, waiting for Amanda to be the one apologizing. When she didn’t, silence thick and potent between them, Lily dug her teeth into Amanda’s bottom lip. She tasted salty and bitter, rebellion and lust. When Lily drew blood, a tangy copper, Amanda groaned.
To create want in someone without any feeling was like creating day and night from nothing. Something precious and new, reshaping the world as she wanted it. Lily wanted it. Always wanted and deserved.
Her tongue swept into Amanda’s mouth, running along teeth and nudging at her new nick. Amanda’s grip on her bruised so well Lily wondered if Amanda felt she was the one in control.
“Lie back,” Lily instructed.
Amanda went down easily, her expression neutral. Her cheeks were flush, skin mottled, chest rising and falling irregularly. Her fingers curled against cement, and Lily wanted to mar her. Wanted her in ways she couldn’t articulate, brain wading through sick desires, nothing tender and loving. Abnormal. Cursed. Heavy and pulsating and desperate.
“You can do whatever feels good,” Amanda said. “I don’t care.”
“Okay.”
Lily leaned over Amanda, eyes scanning her face for something, anything, and deciphered nothing. An emptiness she could fill. Kissing her hard, Lily twisted her hand in Amanda’s hair and tugged. She pulled until Amanda moaned, fingers scrambling against the wings of Lily’s shoulder blades. Lily wanted to pin her down and shove her fingers into her mouth until she gagged.
No longer pink but red and raw, Lily rested two fingers against Amanda’s swollen bottom lip. Amanda opened up, and Lily was so turned on she felt like she could disintegrate. Four fingers pushed into Amanda’s mouth, thumb braced against her cheek and pressed against her teeth. She wondered if she could use Amanda’s molars to cut the inside of her mouth. She wanted to create a bevy of wounds, wanted Amanda to accidentally bite against them as she chomped on junk food, and wanted the hurt to linger, opening and reopening.
Amanda choked, gurgling around Lily’s fingers. Lily could almost feel the flutter of Amanda’s throat around the tips, soaked with a newfound rush of saliva. Amanda’s throat wanted her out. Grasping Lily’s wrist, Amanda kept her in.
Lily felt as though she'd fallen inside her own body, freezing and burning up. Feverish. Maybe she actually was ill. Maybe that’s why she wanted to sit on Amanda’s face, wanted Amanda’s tongue inside her cunt.
She yanked her hand out of Amanda’s mouth and wiped it on Amanda’s stomach. Amanda coughed, eyes damp. Lily’s hungry heart bloomed hot in her chest, and she shifted up on her knees, swinging one leg over Amanda’s head. Amanda grabbed her hips, inhaling heavily and holding her steady.
Lily attempted to lower herself, but Amanda resisted, voice quiet and hoarse, physically wrecked without the emotional component. She said, “Wait.”
Lily huffed. “I don’t want to.”
Amanda exhaled, not quite a laugh or a scoff, and Lily widened her knees, dropping herself an inch. Amanda said, “Patience is a virtue, you know.”
Lily rolled her eyes, and then groaned when one of Amanda’s fingers pushed aside the crotch of her borrowed swimsuit and glid featherlight between her folds.
“I didn’t take you for a tease,” Lily said.
“Anticipation is a crucial precursor to satisfaction.”
“So is listening to your partner.”
“You haven’t said anything,” Amanda answered. Lily had goosebumps up and down her arms and legs, cold save for the burn inside her blood and Amanda’s breath warm against her cunt.
“I thought you were good at reading body language,” Lily said, carding her fingers into Amanda’s hair and scratching at her scalp. Amanda shivered below her. It was not the reaction Lily wanted, but it wasn’t nothing, either.
“I am” – she parted Lily’s cunt – “better at it than most people.”
Amanda’s tongue licked up one side of Lily’s labia and then down the other. The sensation jolted through Lily, warm and wet and new. She had had sex with one boyfriend, but he never went down on her, said he wasn’t a sissy. Amanda’s tongue worked at her folds, flattening against her pussy and swirling around her clit. Lily dug her fingers into Amanda’s skull and Amanda groaned. Good.
Lily’s knees slid further, aching, and Amanda’s fingers pressed into her thighs. When Amanda’s tongue slid into her, it took effort not to fall forward. Her breathing went erratic, eyes blurring, the silky blue of the pool dancing in her peripheral vision. She felt her heart pound against her ribcage, her throat, and between her legs.
Amanda’s nose bumped her clit, her thumb gently held her cunt open, her tongue licked into Lily with purpose, determination, and her lips slurped. The soft, wet, underside of Amanda’s bottom lip brushed against Lily, and Lily felt it with all five senses, acutely, loudly, everywhere.
Shivering, her fingers curled around locks of Amanda’s hair and Lily careened forward. Sounds escaped her open mouth, punched out, high-pitched, and breathy. Humiliating. Her hips writhed, and she wanted.
At her most honest, she wanted. Wanted a nicer, larger clawfoot tub in her bathroom, another million in her trust fund, the Ivy League university of her choice. Wanted Amanda’s tongue twisting in her cunt, fingers working their way inside her. Wanted to subsume Amanda and feel her collapse in her chest like a star going out. Wanted Mark out of her life. Wanted him dead.
Lily rode Amanda’s face, feeling the flush in her cheeks bloom down her neck and chest. Light shone behind her eyes, searing and tightening in her gut like the turn of a screw until it snapped, radiating out to her fingers, toes, the crown of her head.
She rolled clumsily off Amanda, soaking in the feeling, the all-consuming nature of it sparking everywhere. Glancing her way, Lily caught Amanda’s arm moving, her fingers inside her own cunt. She grunted unattractively, and it pulsed low between Lily’s legs like an aftershock.
She did not offer to help, did not move, just watched Amanda orgasm through half-closed eyelids. The slick squish of her, the grind of her hips, and the uneven cadence of her breathing. A rhythm pounding behind Lily’s temples.
Pounding, pounding.
Opening her eyes, Lily looks at the dark mob of people in the club. She’s overheated. Faint. She sips her drink just to wet her mouth and sets it down on the bar. Chlorine and sex fill her nostrils, and her heart beats between her thighs.
Amanda’s letter drifts into her mind, unbidden and unwanted, opened carefully with a nail file and licked closed again before finding its place in her desk drawer.
The room spins, stops. She gasps for air.
While Amanda dreams of horses, Lily dreams of drowning.