Rani, River and Remi
"New drinks," Remi says, and the words aren't quite a question.
Rani moves toward the kitchen, her flannel pyjama pants whispering against her thighs, the thin camisole clinging to damp spots where her hair has brushed her shoulders. The strap has slipped further down her arm, the dark circle of her nipple pressing against the fabric with each breath.
She returns with three cans of hard seltzer, condensation already beading on the aluminium, and a bottle of cranberry juice she found in the refrigerator's door. The ice maker grinds in the background, a mechanical interruption to the human silence.
They mix without speaking, the pour of juice turning the clear liquid ruby, the fizz rising to lips that have already tasted salt and skin tonight.
Remi drinks first, her throat working, the bob of her larynx visible beneath the sweatshirt's collar. When she lowers the can, she licks a drop from her lower lip and fixes her gaze on River.
"Voyeur stories," she says. "That's the game now."
River's freckles seem to darken, her cheeks flushing that particular pink that spreads beneath her eyes and across the bridge of her nose. She pulls the jersey down with one hand, the motion automatic, then seems to catch herself and lets it ride up again. The rope marks on her wrists catch the lamplight.
"Fine," she says, and her voice carries the slight sensuousness of someone who has been gasping and moaning more recently than she admits.
"But I'm not going first again. I already revealed a lot."
"Age order," Rani suggests, settling onto the carpet with her back against the couch, her legs extended toward the coffee table.
The position pulls her camisole tight across her chest, the dark coins of her nipples unmistakable now, the fabric doing nothing to obscure them.
"River's youngest by three months. Then me. Then Remi."
"Fuck you, I'm not youngest," River protests, but she's already laughing, the sound breaking some tension in the room that none of them had named.
"Okay, fine. Three weeks. Three weeks between me and Rani, and Remi's ancient approaching twenty."
"Not there yet," Remi corrects, but she's smiling, the competitive edge softened by alcohol and the particular intimacy of what they've already shared.
"River goes. Then Rani. Then I clean up."
River drinks deeply, the seltzer fizzing in her throat, and when she speaks, her voice has changed, taken on the cadence of someone reciting something they've practised in memory until the edges have worn smooth.
"I was just a month over eighteen. My mum was dating this guy, Brian, who I thought was an asshole but who she seemed to like well enough. He had a boat. A little cabin cruiser he kept at the marina."
She pauses, her fingers tracing the rope mark on her left wrist, following the pattern of compression and release.
"I was supposed to be at a sleepover. Sarah's house—But her aunt came. So, I called my mum, and she said she'd come get me, but she never showed. I took an Uber eventually, paid for it with birthday money, and when I got home, the house was dark except for the kitchen."
The can in her hand has warmed, condensation dripping onto her thigh. She doesn't notice.
"I could hear them before I saw them. The kitchen window looks out over the side yard, and there was this—this rhythm. Like someone chopping vegetables, but too regular. Too fast. I thought maybe they were moving furniture or something. I went around the side of the house because I didn't want to interrupt if they were—if they were busy. Well, they were busy as rabbits in spring."
Her breath catches, not from emotion but from the act of remembering, the sensory details flooding back.
"They weren't in the kitchen. They were in the living room, and the curtains were open because why would they close them? No one was supposed to be home. My mum was on the couch. Not with Brian. With his brother. His married brother who had a wife and three kids in fucking Glendale. And she was—she was on top, her skirt pushed up, her blouse unbuttoned, and he had his hands on her hips, and she was moving like—like she was riding him like she was trying to win something."
Rani's fingers have stilled on her own can, her attention fixed on River with the intensity she usually reserves for set pieces on the field.
"What did you do?"
"I watched," River says, and the admission comes out flat, unadorned.
"I stood there in the dark, and I watched until they finished. Until she—until she made this sound, this high broken sound I'd never heard from her before, and then he groaned and grabbed her ass and pulled her down hard and I could see—fuck, I could see everything. The way her body moved when she came. The way he kept thrusting even after, like he couldn't stop, like he was trying to get deeper, deeper, deeper."
The word repeats, a verbal stutter, and River's hand has moved to her own hip, pressing against the bone that juts beneath her skin.
"I went to Maddie's instead. Told my mum I went straight there."
The silence that follows is different from the ones before, heavier with recognition.
Remi sets her drink down on the coffee table, the aluminium clicking against wood.
"Stepbrother," she says, without preamble. "Trevor. He was twenty-one, home from college for winter break, and he brought this girl back from a party at his friend's house. I was supposed to be asleep. I was eighteen and three months, and I had early practice, and my dad had given me the lecture about responsibility and rest and all that bullshit."
She shifts on the carpet, her cotton shorts, the fabric bunching at her crotch.
"But I heard them. The garage door, then voices, then the stairs. His room is next to mine, paper-thin walls, and I could hear everything. The way they were already kissing before they made it to the bed. The thump of shoes, the zip of a jacket, the rustle of fabric."
Remi's hand has moved to her own stomach, beneath the cropped sweatshirt, her fingers resting on the skin there.
"I got up for the bathroom. But I stood in the hallway, and I looked through the crack in his door, and I could see them. He had her bent over his desk, her skirt up around her waist, her thong pulled to the side. He wasn't even undressed. Just his jeans open, his cock out, and he was—he was fucking her so hard the desk was moving across the floor. Screeching these little increments with every thrust."
Her voice has dropped, taken on a quality of observation rather than participation, the distance of the voyeur in her tone.
"She was looking in the mirror. He had this mirror above his desk, for checking his outfits or whatever, and she was watching herself get fucked. Her mouth was open, and she was making these sounds, not words, just—sounds. And her hand was between her legs, rubbing herself, and he saw, and he grabbed her wrist and pulled it away and said, 'No. Not yet. You come when I let you.'"
Rani makes a small noise, not quite words, and Remi glances at her, acknowledging.
"I watched until he finished. Pulled out and came on her ass, on her lower back, these thick stripes of cum. Then he turned her around and made her kneel and clean him with her mouth. And she did it. She licked him clean, every drop, and he held her hair in a fist and used her mouth until he was hard again, and then he fucked her on the floor, her legs spread wide, her heels drumming against the carpet, and this time he let her touch herself, and she came screaming into his shoulder."
The story ends, and Remi's hand has moved lower, beneath the waistband of her shorts, though she hasn't begun to move, just rests there, claiming the space.
"I went back to my room. God did my fingers give me a workout. The pulse between my legs. I worked myself fast and furious."
Rani sets her drink down with precision, the can placed exactly parallel to the edge of the coffee table. She has been still through both stories, her damp hair darkening the shoulder of her camisole, her nipples hard and visible beneath the thin fabric.
When she speaks, her voice carries the particular cadence of someone who has been waiting to speak, who has held their contribution in reserve.
"Coach Patterson," she says, and the name lands with weight, the recognition immediate.
"Just weeks ago. Playoffs. I stayed late to work on my corner kicks, and when I finished, the locker room was empty. Or I thought it was. I showered. I took my time. I was alone, or I believed I was, and I—I touched myself. In the shower. Thinking about nothing, everything, the way the water felt, the way my body felt after running. You know, masturbate after winning, such a double buzz."
She pauses, her fingers finding the strap of her camisole, sliding it back up her shoulder only to let it fall again.
"I heard voices. From the coach's office. Her office is adjacent to the locker room, connected by that door she never locks. I thought—maybe someone forgot equipment, maybe she was meeting with a parent. I wrapped myself in a towel, and I looked through the window in the door. The one with the frosted glass that's supposed to be private but isn't, not really, if you press close enough."
Her breath has changed, become shallower, and her hand has moved to her own chest, resting over her heart.
"She wasn't alone. There was a woman with her. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Beautiful in this severe way, all angles and dark hair pulled back. They were kissing. Standing in the middle of the office, fully dressed, just—kissing. But it was the way Coach Patterson was kissing her. The way she had her hands on this woman's face, holding her still, controlling the angle, the depth. I'd never seen her look like that. She was always so controlled, so professional, so—contained."
Rani's hand has moved lower, beneath the waistband of her flannel pants, and she doesn't hide it, doesn't pretend.
"Then the woman pulled back. Said something, I couldn't hear. And she—she reached down, between her own legs, and she pulled her cock out. From under her skirt. She was wearing a skirt, professional, green, and underneath she had this—this cock, thick and dark and hard, and Coach Patterson went to her knees. Went to her knees on the industrial carpet of her own office and took it in her mouth like she'd been waiting for it, like she'd been thinking about nothing else."
The words have sped up, Rani's usual precision giving way to something more urgent.
"I watched her suck that cock. Watched her hands grip the woman's thighs, the muscles in her neck working, the way she pulled back to breathe and there was spit everywhere, connecting them, and the woman said—she said, 'Good girl, I've been thinking about your mouth all day,' and Coach Patterson moaned around her, the sound vibrating, and the woman grabbed her hair and started fucking her face, using her, deep thrusts that made her gag and choke and she didn't pull away, she leaned into it, she wanted it, she—"
Rani stops, her chest heaving, her hand moving now beneath her pants in small, tight circles.
"They moved to the desk. Coach Patterson bent over it, her track pants pulled down, her ass bare, and the woman—she fucked her. Slow at first, so slow, making her feel every inch, and then faster, harder, the desk moving like Trevor's, screeching against the floor, and Coach Patterson was begging, actually begging, saying please, saying harder, saying she needed to come, needed it, and the woman reached around and touched her and she—she came screaming into her own arm, biting down, and the woman kept fucking her, through it, after it, until she came too, pulling out and coming on her ass, her lower back, the same stripes, the same pattern, and then she made Coach Patterson clean her with her mouth—"
The story breaks, Rani's hand working faster now, her hips lifting slightly from the carpet, and Remi says,
"So hot," the words barely audible, and River echoes, "So hot, that last story, so fucking hot," and they're all breathing hard, the air in the room thick with vanilla and sweat and the particular scent of female arousal, musky and unmistakable.
"So," Remi says, and her voice is rough, scraped raw by confession and desire.
"The question."
"The question," River repeats, and she's moved, shifted closer to Rani on the carpet, her jersey riding up further, the elastic of her underwear visible, the rope marks on her wrists livid in the lamplight.
"Yeah," Rani says, her hand still moving beneath her pants, her eyes half-closed but finding Remi, finding River, a triangle of gazes locking.
"Let's make our own story."
It starts with Remi.
She moves first, as she always does, as she pushes herself up and across the space between them. She doesn't ask, doesn't hesitate, just takes Rani's face in her hands and kisses her, her mouth opening immediately, her tongue finding Rani's with the certainty of long practice, of wanting and being wanted.
Rani's hand comes up from her pants, damp and smelling of herself, and she grips Remi's sweatshirt, pulling her closer, and they're kissing deep, filthy, the kind of kiss that says everything they haven't spoken, the competition and the desire and the time of knowing each other and not knowing this.
River makes a sound, not quite words, and Remi reaches for her without breaking from Rani, her hand finding River's jersey and pulling, and River comes willingly, eagerly, pressing against Remi's side and turning her face up, and Remi breaks from Rani to kiss her, to taste her, the difference immediate and intoxicating—Rani's precision, River's softness, the way they open differently, respond differently, want differently.
Then Rani's hand is in River's hair, turning her, and they're kissing, Rani and River, while Remi watches, her breath coming hard, her hand back in her shorts, working herself in time with the movement of their mouths.
Rani's camisole has slipped further, one breast almost free, and River's hand finds it, cups it, her thumb brushing the dark nipple, and Rani arches into the touch like a cat, like something hungry and finally fed.
Remi leans in, presses herself against them both, and the kiss becomes three, mouths finding mouths, tongues tangling, the taste of cranberry and tequila and each other mixing, becoming indistinguishable.
Rani's hand is between River's legs, beneath the jersey, and River gasps into Remi's mouth, and Remi swallows the sound, wants more, wants everything.